Scottish Govt Consultation. What did you think? What next for Gender Self ID?

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Feeling a strange sense of relief now that the Scottish Consultation deadline is nearly done. Waiting for 5pm then hitting the wine, as there's still a no travel advice here.

What did you all think of it?

I used to do a lot of work in bid management and overall it seemed to me like a badly written and rigged bid request. It was as though they based the requirements of the proposal on a pre-selected solution. If I had produced like that I would have got my arse kicked and if we received such a rigged proposal (from a government, no less) it would be certainly be grounds for complaint.

Also, proposing that non binary status should be written into law is barking. Non binary has no basis in reality. Are they on drugs? I can't believe a government would release a proposal for legislation on the basis of complete and utter GUFF.

I am mixed about some of the SNP's proposal, for example, the named person proposal was a scandal, but they have done some good work. Have completely lost any respect for them now, releasing this shoddy work which will have an unprecedented impact on women, girls and on children with no obvious advantage to transgender people at all.

I do think that they will push it into law regardless. And given that most of Scotland or UK have no real understanding of the implications, I foresee a mighty shitstorm ahead.

I've worked in local government. It wouldn't be by any means the first 'consultation' I've seen where the plan has long been since decided and written and consultation is merely a box ticking exercise. There will be a lot of public attention on this consultation outcome, but I'm afraid I'd put good money on only the supporting comments and data being used to support the grand plan which will be immediately implemented.

Not giving details for obvious reasons. I've worked on a public consultation where the controversial proposal to change local services was set up and framed as a fait accompli. I asked some pointed questions in meetings and said we ought to be transparent and pulled up the then Labour government best practice guidelines and indirectly as a result of this they decided they were obliged to carry out a proper one, which likely changed the whole outcome. It is so easy to manipulate these things.

Would there be grounds for a judicial review if they decide to implement this? I think government consultations are supposed to adhere to the Gunning Principles.

www.eiapractice.wales.nhs.uk/consultation-gunning-principles-

www.nhsinvolvement.co.uk/connect-and-create/consultations/the-gunning-principles

One of the things they were going to do was not consult on the status quo as an option. I persuaded them that we should include this as an choice. It's similar with this one, the questions are mostly framed in a way that make you think you are just being asked to give an opinion on the changes, not whether there should be any changes at all.

I personally think that it's something that could be looked at. But IANAL.

One of the Gunning Principles is:

The product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account: If the decision-maker does not properly consider the material produced by the consultation, then it can be accused of having made up its mind; or of failing to take into account a relevant consideration.

So if they appear to have already made up their mind and go ahead regardless of all the objections, I think the result can be challenged. We'd need to raise funds for a legal challenge, though.

Does anyone have church of scotland information? I cant believe they wouldnt oppose gender self id (a bit enemy of my enemy for me but needs must)

Would they ever release the results?
No idea but I'm sensing it would be like Brexit 50-50 for-against maybe only slightly for or against.

Left mine a bit late but done with an hour to spare!

The 'running over puppies' was a good analogy.

If this then that - but I don't want the 'this' in the first place!

My concern is that the results are likely to be heavily biased towards self id. In real life, no one I have spoken to have heard of the issue, let alone the consultation. I suspect all of the trans community will have heard of it.

5pm. It's All Done! A TOAST to all the wonderful women who helped me learn about this, before Round 2 commences..

Well, I managed to get my response in, under the wire. I don't know how much attention they'll pay to the non self-IDers as I reckon they've probably decided in favour of feelings.

Just squeaked in!!! The last submit button took ages and timed out so i thought I was late. But then got an email saying it's been received. Phew!!!

A round of & all round!

I found that very therapeutic, also really useful to put the stuff out as an argument in response to questions. But the "consultation" feels like stonewall wrote it.

It was absolutely framed as being a done deal. The wording was suggestive of that.

I'm sure many respondents will have pointed out the many flaws but I fear it won't make a difference. I feel they will take more notice of a) people who are actually Scottish and b) those who are responding on behalf of official orgs - and I bet most of those are pro self ID.

I would absolutely contribute to a legal challenge. It was a shitty consultation that will result in an even shittier piece of legislation.

I did mine a while ago. My partner did it with 5 minutes to spare because I gently reminded him that there was half an hour to go to deadline.

He is as opposed to it as I am.

They won't be able to bring it in under the radar any more. There will be lots of publicity and we need to make our voices heard and as I did in the consultation I mentioned below demand a transparent process with a proper consultation with focus groups etc and random telephone surveys on any changes in England, not just an self selected internet survey like this. To me that is not an adequate public consultation.

What I mean is that I pushed for following best practice guidelines as due diligence for our public consultation and they did. I believe the local service I am talking about would not exist today in its current form if I had not done that.

I am deeply worried about the implications of this ill thought out consultation. Wrote to my MSP and MP, both of whom wrote back, basically saying they are toeing the Scottish Labour party line on favour of this change of legislation. I am ready to get really vocal about this though, should this go ahead.

How much would it cost to commission a respected polling organisation to conduct a poll on our behalf? Is that possible, if it came to it?

OldCrone Thats useful to know. I felt they'd already made their minds up, which is a breach of the first principle.
I don't feel any sense of relief now the deadline's past, actually pretty anxious about the outcome.

Good question BlindYeo. I'd contribute.

It came across as having been written entirely based on input from trans orgs. All the questions were worded from the perspective that what trans people want is the only thing that matters, and in places it came across as downright hostile to the idea of anyone else's rights being worth considering.

Still taken aback by the divorce question. Yeah, let's try to social engineer people into staying in marriages that they want to leave, what a progressive idea.

I agree it was a badly constructed consultation (I've also got some experience of being on the other side of the fence with these sorts of things)

I think the question about non-binary was an acknowledgement that it's a bit bonkers to legislate for this, but they wanted to cover this off to put it to bed for a bit of time at least.