Scotland's Children's Commissioner - 12 years should be allowed to change legal sex without parental permission

[howonearthdidwegethere]

Had anyone else picked this up?

Scotland's Children's Commissioner submitted a response to the Scottish Government's consultation on reform of the GRA.

He believes that children aged 12 should be able to change their legal sex even without their parent's consent.

www.cypcs.org.uk/ufiles/Gender-Recognition-Consultation.pdf

A child aged 12 might be in the last year of primary school and he thinks they should be able to change their birth certificate without asking the parents.

He also believes the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be at least 14, if not older.

www.scotsman.com/news/plea-to-further-increase-age-of-criminal-responsibility-1-4830605

So if a child aged 12 is sufficiently mature to change their legal sex without any reference to their parents, why not lower the age of consent? Is that where we are heading?

This is a bit outing but DD14 and I did some filming for a TV documentary being shown next year. Irritatingly the trans issue came up but I suspect our thoughts on that will be cut.

Anyway what struck me was the way in which because she is a minor all these strict rules apply. She needed a child performer licence, stuff had to be read to her on camera in order to prove they had followed protocol, she needed an hour’s interview with a clinical psychologist to check she was ok to do the show and, when they were miking her, the sound people were not allowed to touch her which was really irritating (if correct) because it made positioning of the mic very fiddly. They had no issue dropping it down my blouse & sticking on my bra strap!

But it’s funny isn’t it that the protocols for a 14 year old to participate in a TV programme seem to be much more mindful of safeguarding and getting parental consent (both parents have to sign release forms) than making such a significant life change.

It just doesn't make sense. There is some kind of logic vacuum around the T, like a black hole that sucks all sense from the vicinity.

Politelygiveszerofucks
When I was younger I did some acting (very, very small scale!). I had to have written confirmation from my doctor that I was capable of taking part, written permission from my headteacher to miss any school, a chaperone on set at all times and obviously permission from my parents. There were also strict rules about hours on set, breaks etc.
But as you say-that was for performing for a few minutes in front of a camera. Much more life changing than 'changing sex'.

Yes we needed permission from school even though filming was Saturday, a chaperone on set, loads of snacks were provided and they were v strict about the 6 hour rule.

But change sex? Meh.

This is horrific. There is no way that a child of 12 can make a decision like this.

The named person legislation removes parental control.

The guidance from mermaids also pushes the same thing - confidential disclosure to another adult for example. The idea of schools and other bodies affirming a child against the wishes of the parents and this being state sanctioned removes parental control.

It needs to be publicised that rights which can currently only be removed in a court by due process will be able to be removed by other bodies with no due process or appeal.

Parents are unaware of the ramifications of these proposed changes

The named person thing has always been a chilling concept.

It’s been shelved the named person thing
In my country it’s a fecking disgrace that we don5 trust parents to parent their children
So the state has to take over cos the state does not trust their own parents to parent their children
Cost 10 million so far for feck all
Fuck you swinney. You have no clue about your own country
And swinney is the one who brought in to education that kids in p2 can be taught that they can chang3 their gender.
Fuckwit swinney

Named Person hasn't been officially shelved AFAIK, I think the last thing was that Swinney wanted to push it through before they had issued guidance to all the professions who were to become Named Persons. The committee said they couldn't possibly do that without having seen the guidance, especially now GDPR means that it would be a million times more illegal/difficult than it was before. Swinney was furious and basically said he'd get it through come hell or high water.

And yes, Edinburgh Council thinks if you disagree about your 12 year old changing gender, their school pastoral care teacher (Named Person) should be able to take that decision out of your hands.

It may not align with all the views of a lot of people here, but the Scottish Family Party are against many of the crazy SNP initiatives and are talking a huge amount of sense about what's going on in Scottish politics. You can find them on Facebook and YouTube - worth a look!

Do these people have teenagers?

Don't they remember how bonkers it is?

Why do they want to drive a wedge?

Sick

I'm so pleased you are talking about Scotland.

Coincidentally, today I looked up the "Scottish women" page because I follow them on twitter, and saw their post about the bill where they redefine 'woman'.

I wanted to start a thread on here but was a bit nervous. What can we do? (I live in Scotland). Is it too late? How can we mobilise?

And yeah, the named person always sounded v off to me. I have a child with a disability, have always had to push and fight for what they need and no way is some fucking head teacher having final say over my child's wellbeing and provision. Deeply, deeply sinister.

We are mobilising! Check out forwomen.scot

I have just looked at the Scottish Family Party’s website - I am struggling to find a value I can align with there. It looks like it is run by three men and questions spending on a range of charities and initiatives which support vulnerable people and the environment. Unless that spending would go into programmes run by the government, then the social fabric would weaken.

Marriage is the foundation of their idea of family - that is great until you have domestic abuse and child protection issues, or addiction or quite simply domestic inequalities which do not allow women to fulfil their potential outside the home. As a single parent who left an abusive marriage and was supported by third sector agencies (to an extent, my legal costs were paid by me because I am a professional person), it is hard to see how their model society would respond or support women in my position. Our current model fails in many, many ways, but it also offers a level of freedom and autonomy which was not available sixty years ago or more, when there was a huge social stigma about divorce and a silence around domestic abuse.

Sorry, that was badly phrased - the point about me being a professional person was income related because I did not qualify for legal aid, not because people who do qualify are unprofessional.

Named person has not been shelved. They’re still trying to ram it through. The judge that described it as totalitarian had their measure. The SNP don’t do democracy. Just like P1 testing which holyrood voted to shelve but they’re still going ahead with anyway.

My DS is nearly 12 and this stuff terrifies me. There’s no way he’s able to make decisions that might affect his future fertility or sex life at this age.

I would move out of Scotland rather than have the “corporate mamma” take over decisions about him.

I totally agree that some of the stuff coming out of Scotland is chilling. Part of the problem is the “wheesht until Indy” mentality which means that anything the SNP does no matter how crazy is backed to the hilt by the cult as any criticism might mean less chance of independence.

Omg it’s not been shelved ?
Wtaf is wrong with my country
The only place that parents are not trusted to be parents
Education standards are dropping they can’t fill teacher vacancies I heard
Or gp places
And yeps the p1 testing
Yet they spend 10 million on this shite
My kids don’t need a named person
It feels creepy and like I am not to be trusted
Shouldn’t this money be targeted

Thanks, HackedOffWoman , will do.