So the initial findings just shared with ourselves and some others regarding the Scottish GRA consultation found that a whopping 40% of responses were against self ID, despite LGBT/trans orgs saying that only a very tiny minority were against the government's proposals.
Yes we would like a majority against but that was never going to be likely due to the nature of the issue and the fact that LGBT groups were rallying all their support behind supporting the proposals while most women had no idea it was even happening or was relevant to them. But we also never needed a majority against the proposals to challenge this legislation. We of course need to see a proper breakdown and how responses are weighted, but this is a win for us. This kind of legislation needs solid widespread support if it is to be argued that it will not impact on women and girls, and not even something like an unrepresentative consultation where trans activists went full force in getting all their support to respond to it - and one which did not at all address the possible impacts on women and girls - can give them that. And we can be sure that women's responses were not generic and went into great detail and evidence in terms of how our lives would be impacted, which is something the govt cannot ignore. The govt cannot say a substantial number of women's lives being affected is just fine cos most people that responded to the consultation don't care. It doesn't work like that. So great job everyone who worked on this. We did good.
*I tried to link the file but realise it's only images I can upload...