Secretary of State for Scotland looking at using Westminster powers to overule gender recognition bill

If labour had voted against this bull wouldn’t have got through I read somewhere

This seems to be the solution. Don’t do S35, but instead modify the Equality Act to make it clear that sex is biological sex.

A GRC can change documents but does not count for the E Act where sex is the protected characteristic and a single sex space can exclude all males, including those with a GRC.

That would make it difficult to treat males with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment differently to males without that protected characteristic. So GRC holders can’t be discriminated or harrassed because of their identity, but do not get special privileges - e.g. prisons etc are based on sex not ‘gender identity’.

Is it David TC Davies from Wales. If so he is a good’un. He was the very first MP from any party to stick his head above the parapet and support women. He even hosted a WPUK meeting in theHouses of Parliament when Millwall FC cancelled their booking. David Davis MP in contrast was a leading Brexiteer. I assume he knows what a woman is, but would be less certain he cares.

The issue for WM is afaik that Scotland having a completely different approach means England has it by proxy. A few hour's drive and you can self-id and at a younger age. Globally the practise has been to respect/adhere to GRCs from other countries so if you drive from England to Scotland, get a GRC, then go back to England, England has to respect it (obviously this can't happen in a matter of days but it's a short enough time period for young people and abusive men to make the effort).
All of this feels very deliberate. It was the Tories that started all the GRA nonsense. Now they're considering it as a perfect opportunity for a power grab.
Since the TRAs/MRAs have achieved exactly what they wanted in Scotland, even down to protecting sex offenders. What will they do next? Slope off into obscurity? Or what is the next part of women's rights they want to decimate? Or will it circle back round to a Named Persons/pie agenda? Scotland has shown itself vulnerable to opportunists.

It looks like my MP would call me a bigot, if he responded at all.

Wow FlirtsWithRhinos
our rapists will be popping over the border with their shiny new birth certificates you know & your rapists can pop over the border for a few months & go back with one.

There's an excellent analysis here of why the changes to the GRA are outwith the competency of Holyrood due to the interaction with the EA ukconstitutionallaw.org/2022/12/21/michael-foran-sex-gender-and-the-scotland-act/

Prior to Covid all this gender ideology nonsense I was a supporter of Scottish independence.

However, Nicola Sturgeon's conduct through the pandemic and her obsession with gender ideology have left me LOATHING the SNP. I'd never vote for them. Judging from conversations with my colleagues/friends I'm not the only one either.

I genuinely believe she is completely out of touch with the vast majority of Scottish people on this crusade. IMO most people in Scotland do not believe you can change sex.

We have a fairly shitty version of PR in Scotland - a modified D'Hondt system.

This is what has got us the Green MSPs who have driven this highly unpopular and very flawed legislation through. No Green MSPs won on the straight FPTP bit of the vote; they're all list MSPs.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c37d28xdn99t/scottish-parliament-election-2021

Then you haven't read S35 of the Act, or considered what else would happen if Westminster does nothing. It's this issue today, what tomorrow? Is the rest of the UK to be ruled by an SNP/Green deal? I don't think so. That's not democracy.

I hope Westminster intervenes. This scenario is exactly what Section 35 is there for.

I’m appalled at Labour, more than anything. My Labour MSP point blank refused to meet with me to discuss the issue. Her website says to phone to arrange a constituent surgery, yet the phone number doesn’t work. When I emailed, her office said no and ignored my further plea. I made the mistake of voting for her last time. I won’t be making that mistake again.

It's already a tribal issue; and the consequences for the rest of the UK if the Bill becomes law could be a nightmare. A proper public discussion is exactly what we need, so I very much hope the UK government steps up to the plate.

I'm confused by this a little.

My understanding is that gender reassignment and sex are the protected characteristics under the EA2010. The new Scottish law allows for a quicker process for gender recognition (which I assume falls under gender reassignment?)

I may be being a total idiot, but don't we just need to make really clear that sex and gender are different things? You can be whatever gender you like but spaces, services etc are split by gender not sex?

How badly have I mangled the situation?

I'm not Scottish, so take this as you will..

I don’t think the Westminster government should intervene. It sucks for Scottish women and I am so, so sad for you today, but I think involving Westminster will turn it into a tribal issue like it is in the States which stops people thinking about it properly. And as many of us know from our own experience, the one thing that is most guaranteed to make someone move from #BeKind, live and let live to "wait, what?" is thinking about it properly.

I think Scotland, having got into this mess, has to find its own way out again. Anything imposed by Westminster will leave it unresolved in many people's minds and likely entrench existing divisions.

Evan Davies on radio 4 PM prog follows the discussion about the GRA change in Scotland with report from Afghanistan about girls being excluded from school,
with zero fucking irony or pennies dropping. Presumably he thinks Afghanistani women and girls can solve their problems by just identifying as males???

I have just emailed my (Conservative) MP. He responded very positively to my last email on this issue so I’m hopeful that he will raise the matter with colleagues.
I asked him to support any intervention by The Secretary of State for Scotland to protect the UK wide right to single sex spaces.

Dark day.

I hope this is the end of the SNP led by that poisonous toad Sturgeon. She's absolutely destroyed any hope of Scottish independence.

I hope you’re right. Better than the reverse which is possible.

It pains me to agree with you.

I think Sturgeon has badly miscalculated this. Many many indy supporters, including me, will think this is too high a price to pay, and will have seen how badly the Scottish Government have handled this. I used to be a hard yes to indy, I'm a much softer yes now, and I'm certain I'm not the only one considering whether I want indy like this.

As Joanna Cherry said outside the Scottish Parliament yesterday, this is not the Scotland I want.

Already written to my MP to support s35 because the Bill incompatible with international obligations (CEDAW), and it seems to makes modifications to reserved matters (many and various but the Equality Act 2010 is cited in commentary).

Asked to meet said MP as well

Doing what I can. We won't wheesht
💜🤍💚

Anyone have an opinion as to whether proportional representation in Scotland has made it easier to pass of this unpopular and dangerous piece of legislation?

If we had first past the post, the SNP would have an absolute majority. They wouldn't have to listen to the Greens, but they have plenty of extremists and fanatics in their own party.

I have some bad news for you all: this is how politics works on every issue.

Lobbying and corruption.

Look at the things you see protest marches about, it’s always the causes that are losing. Even when those causes are popular.

Really powerful interests don’t bother with protests, they go straight to the people with political power and they help make policy, quietly, out of sight of public discussions.

Either way, this is going to get very messy.

Absolutely! The Sex Matters analysis upthread shows that this ridiculous bill has created a lot of very complicated problems that won't be easy to resolve

If the Greens and been as effective on environmental issues as they have been on the destruction of womens rights then we would have some decent policies for tackling climate change in place by now. Imagine starting out with a mission to save the planet and finishing with the obliteration of rights for more than half the population. They're more toxic than nuclear waste.

I get that there is opposition to this bill iñ Scotland, and that the majority don't actually want it. What, I guess, scares me is how little difference this seems to make.

It scares me too. The women of Scotland put up a great fight but no one cares or is listening. I hope all the campaign groups in Scotland aren't feeling too despondent this evening.

I know it was suggested ages ago that they were using this as a way to pick a fight with the English parliament and scream unfair and demand another shot at Independence if they blocked it…and I don’t know if that makes me feel any better if it is true, that would mean that they have used women, children and trans people as pawns. Either way, this is going to get very messy.