Scottish GRA draft legislation

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

According to Shirley Anne Somerville (MSP) on twitter twitter.com/WG_Scotland/status/1206322648206233600?s=19 the draft GRA bill will be out next week.

Women and Girls in Scotland have done some tweeting about the form the consultation is likely to take and they are hoping to release some guidance next year.

Definitely one to keep an eye on, and submit responses too. Even though this is Scottish legislation you can be sure that Westminster will be watching closely.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine thank you, so we are back in that'll never happen territory then

I think the "spousal veto" remains - need someone smarter than me to check...

How can obvious males be excluded when all their ID documents tell us they are female?

That should say, ‘How can even obvious males be excluded when all their ID documents tell us they are female.’

With these proposals anyone can get a GRC with ease. Not only will there be a large rise in the number of males using women’s spaces, the very worst kind, the sexual fetishists, will be over-represented.

Unless of course providers start using and enforcing the exceptions. I know I'm being naive, but it might not be so bad if single sex spaces generally applied single-sex exemptions (which in most places they should be able to) and if the confidentiality clause is changed so that if a trans person is challenged in a single sex space they are required to show their GRC to the provider of the space?

Deeply frustrating that they claim there is no evidence of problems from countries where this has already been introduced.

The Faculty of Advocates cautioned during the last consultation that there had not been enough time for problems to have emerged. And lo and behold, problems are now beginning to emerge, most notably in Canada, but also now in Ireland vis-a-vis prisoners.

The fact that the single sex exemptions are not even being applied currently to prisons, where the problems of male violence and female vulnerability are most likely to collide gives me no faith whatsoever in the idea that the government will ensure the situation is balanced.

I read on twitter that a guide will be going our

Am going to wait on that

I can’t see how single sex spaces can be enforced. The EHRC said service providers should not ask to see GRCs. All other ID documents will read ‘female’. They know they are rendering the Equality Act useless as far as single sex spaces are concerned. They just think most people are too stupid to work that out.

In fairness I don’t think many places are asking to see birth certificates at present, but they can, and I think the biggest effect of this legislation will be to embolden males who want to access single sex spaces, trans and non-trans alike. With all the discussion, they too will learn that it is considered bad practice to request sight of a GRC and that organisations that want to use birth certificates to separate out men must ask EVERYONE (not just suspected males) to produce a birth certificate. More of these males, possibly many more, will demand access to female spaces, even those who aren’t legal females because they’ve got a really good chance of getting in.

Its five very target questions in the consultation.

No space to include other comments and no questions on sex based rights and any conflict

I’m horrified that the age for applying for a GRC will be lowered to 16. It’s far too big a life changing decision to be made at 16.

First time commenter here. I wanted to add that in addition to Women & Girls Scotland, its worth following Murray Blackburn Mackenzie on Twitter. They are Edinburgh based policy analysts and have done a lot of research on the value of sex-disaggregated data.

As I read this I'm thinking of the victims of Katie Dolatowski at the Morrison's in Fife.

No risk huh? Tell those little girls and their parents that.

At what point will the risks and repercussions be concluded as not acceptable?

Do they give a number of assaults, rapes, etc, such as Katie Dolatowski's recent assault on a child in a toilet, which was followed by Dolatowski being housed in a woman's single sex accomm? Presumably this pretty illustrative case is being discounted. For some reason.

Of course much of the effect will be unquantifiable - how exactly do you count women who won't access or try to access single sex spaces because they know there may be males there? How do you count women not attending smears or mammograms because they've been told they're bigoted for requesting a female HCP? What about all the womens' groups that have now got to consider the presence of male-bodied people? Lesbian groups? Teenage schoolchildren avoiding toilets? Women who are now being told even the word 'woman' is exclusionary and therefore must be avoided?

We are being erased.

crosspost, OhHoly but yes, it's pretty damn cruel to the child and her family to pretend they don't exist and that incident never happened.

I think the biggest effect of this legislation will be to embolden males who want to access single sex spaces, trans and non-trans alike

I agree with this Charleston.

I also think that it’s quite possible that because there was no discussion in the jurisdictions where this has already been introduced, very few people, other than dedicated trans campaigners, would even be aware the legislation had been brought in.

So those likely to abuse the legislation very likely don’t know it exists. But of course as word filters out, as is already occurring in prisons, then the problems become very quickly apparent.

And of course this is another reason why those pushing this are keen to roll it out without delay. They don’t want time for problems to emerge.

Placemarking for later.

Please everyone outline their comments and concerns about this proposal (with reference to any evidence to date) as a number of interested lawyers will be considering the proposals over the next month; and will use the concerns raised to formulate a collective response

One of the things for me is that laws have to be as specific as possible. This legislation is going to make making a false declaration a criminal offence. How do they intend to tell if a declaration is false. (See also living as opposite gender for 3 months).

Also, as many others have said. How will single sex spaces work. If a transwoman turns up at a woman's shelter, and they turn them away due to sex based exemptions, but the transwoman say they are a woman. What then?

Is anyone else finding it VERY strange that Wings Over Scotland was banned from Twitter the day of this consultation being released?

Wings had a large Twitter following especially in Scotland, is reliably GC and would undoubtedly have alerted his followers to this.

He got reported all the time by TRAs to no avail previously, and didn't break any Twitter rules in the Tweet he got banned for.

I am genuinely not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I'm finding it weird.

Yes Derry I commented as such on another thread.

‘’There is no evidence from overseas which the Scottish Government is aware of which would suggest that moving to a statutory declaration-based system for obtaining legal gender recognition would impact adversely on the rights of women.‘’

The ‘is aware’ in the above is the clear get out clause. There is - they are just not aware of it. Two different things.

I know we have the - it’ll never happen thread -plentiful with predictable examples of perverts being perverts in women’s only spaces.

However is there a thread, website etc which specifically compares incidence in sex based crimes / voyuerism / harassment etc in women’s only spaces overseas pre and post self ID which we can feedback.

What are the key countries? Canada, Ireland, Malta...

What about the changes to statistical data which we need to plan for society

• I.e females now counted as rapists Yes - that good old woman on woman crime- although I can’t, but then I’m an old fashioned woman - the non penised type.

There must be loads problems. Are they not being reported?

Agree derry and for something fairly innocuous as well

I’m sure many ‘minor’ sexual assaults are not reported. The hassle of reporting to the police and the low probability of the offender being caught (or the perception that this is the case) probably mean women often don’t bother. Also, Prion has explained how it will take time for predators to learn of the new laws and start taking advantage of them, so it will take some time for cases and patterns of offending to emerge.

For Women Scotland have published a statement on the draft bill (see screenshot) and are holding a public meeting on the draft bill consultation on 16 January next year.

Tickets are available here

I hope to see you there!

As for no awareness of problems, that's due to wilful ignorance on the part of the Scottish Government. A great many organisations have been trying to alert them, but when those who ought to be listening have their fingers firmly stuck in their ears singing

la la la la bigot la la la la la transphobe la la la right wing la la dinosaurs la la la la

then, no, you won't be aware.

Here is an article from October 2019 featuring Robert Purcell, chair of the Law Society Criminal Law Committee in Ireland, about problems emerging with the Irish self-id system.