Gender identity and women's rights

Dear donors

It’s been six months since we launched our crowdfunder. The time has flown by quickly and we have been working hard to generate analysis of the Scottish Government’s proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Whilst the UK Government has paused plans to reform the GRA, the Scottish Government has indicated that it intends to enact its proposed changes to the GRA before the 2021 Holyrood election.

We wrote to you shortly after the crowdfunder had closed and we had received your kind donations. We promised that we would write again at the end of February 2020 to report on what work we had undertaken:

GRA reform

Over the past three months, we have published the following briefings and blogs on our website:

• A review of the party manifesto commitments on GRA reform for the 2019 general election (28 November 2020) 
• Our response to the launch of the Scottish Government’s consultation paper (17 December 2020)
• A blog reflecting on the purpose of the GRA 2004, compared with the proposals contained in the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill (27 December 2019)
• A blog reviewing the Scottish Government’s position on the placement of trans prisoners and the implications for GRA reform (17 January 2020)
• Our assessment of the Scottish Government’s draft Bill and consultation, reviewed against the 20 questions we published in October 2019 (27 January 2020)
• A blog summarising the effects of Belgium’s shift to a model of self-declaration for legal gender recognition (5 February 2020)
• A blog reviewing the UK-wide effects of the Scottish Government’s proposals (9 February 2020)
• A guest briefing note by solicitor Rebecca Bull, who presented her views to MSPs at a meeting in the Scottish Parliament on 29 January on the Impact of Gender Recognition Reform on Sex Based Rights (11 February 2020)
• A blog setting out other ways in which the GRA might be reformed (16 February 2020)
• A blog comparing the provisions of the 2004 Act with the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill (17 February 2020)
• A blog examining the Cabinet Secretary’s claim that the Scottish Government is seeking to secure consensus on proposed reform of the GRA (21 February 2020)
• Our view of the responses we received from the Scottish Government to a set of questions we sent to the Cabinet Secretary on 6 January 2020 (23 February 2020)
• A guest blog by journalist Jill Nesbitt on the Gender Recognition Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 2015 (25 February 2020)

We have publicised this material to others, to assist their own involvement in the consultation process, through our Twitter account and by direct contact. We sent our initial assessment of the Bill direct to a number of key organisations and individuals, including the Law Society of Scotland, local authorities and the media. 

We have recently had a peer reviewed article accepted for publication in the journal Edinburgh Law Review, looking at the expansion of gender recognition laws in Europe and the ‘international best practice’ narrative. This will be published in May 2020. 

Our website has had over 10,500 views over the past three months. The briefing by Rebecca Bull has been downloaded from our website almost 1,500 times, making it the most downloaded document, followed by our initial assessment of the consultation paper.

On 6 January 2020 we wrote to the Cabinet Secretary with a series of questions about the draft bill and have put in place arrangements to meet a relevant senior civil servant before the consultation period closes.

We have lodged a number of Freedom of Information requests which have identified the limitations of the work done to underpin the draft bill, particularly on option appraisal and the gathering and analysis of evidence to underpin the Equality Impact Assessment. We have also assisted MSPs in identifying relevant parliamentary questions.

We have also written about and commented on GRA reform in the media. Our press articles and commentary since 1 December include the following: 

• Only third of Scots back gender change at 16 (The Sunday Times, 1 December 2019)
• We need more clarity on gender rights debate from Scottish Government (The Scotsman, 1 January 2020)
• SNP ministers enrage breast cancer patients after using expert who made ‘offensive’ remarks about mastectomies (The Sun, 8 January 2020)
• Agenda: Government should take closer look at gender law precedents (The Herald, 16 January 2020)
• Transgender reforms ‘can be completed before 2021 election’ (STV, 20 February 2020) 
• Critics of trans plans take heart from London news (The Sunday Times, 23 February 2020)
• SNP plans could spark cross-border ‘gender tourism’ (Scottish Daily Mail, 29 February 2020)

On 20 February 2020, Lucy was interviewed by STV news about the Scottish Government plans for reform. A summary of the issues discussed can be accessed here. 

2021 Census and data collection

We have continued to scrutinise plans for the UK’s 2021 census, in particular the proposed guidance to accompany the sex question which will direct individuals to respond based on their self-declared gender identity. You can read our various blogs and briefings on this topic here. We have also commented on the Scottish Government proposals in the following media articles:  

• Academics criticise 2021 census guidance allowing sex to be self-identified (The Herald, 26 December 2019)
• Scottish census body backs self-ID guidance for sex question (The Guardian, 27 December 2019) 
• Controversial list of sexualities could be dropped from Scottish Census (The Scotsman, 3 February 2020) 

In January 2020 we met the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician to discuss the Scottish Government’s Sex and Gender in Data Working Group, and followed up the meeting with a detailed letter, and provided further relevant detail. This has been downloaded from our website almost 500 times.

Other work on sex and gender identity

We published a guest blog in January 2020 by an anonymous researcher working in biomedical sciences on NHS Scotland’s policy of allowing people to amend the sex marker on their health record.

We also spoke at the WPUK 50 Years of Women’s Liberation Conference in London on 1 February, at a workshop on women and the policymaking process.

Your generous donations have enabled us to have the time to undertake this work and for that we remain tremendously grateful. Thank you.

Most of the funds raised via our crowdfunder have paid for our time, and a small amount has gone towards expenses such as printing and travel costs. We anticipate that the remaining funds will support us until around Easter. We will review the sustainability of our future work in the coming weeks, with a view to launching a new crowdfunder in the spring.

The Scottish Government’s consultation closes on 17 March. We are currently drafting our response, based on the material already published and other research and analysis we have undertaken, and will post it on our website very soon. 

Kath, Lucy and Lisa