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.

'Women’s rights have been won by women self-organising and building confidence together. If women cannot define themselves, they cannot self-organise as a sex.'

Great quote from the Joan Mcalpine interview.

rodgmum - what are you talking about?

I made the effort to post the correct link to encourage women to reply.

What part of what I wrote said dont bother????????????????

stumbledin please don’t discourage anyone from replying to the consultation! The first consultation was also worldwide and many responses were from outside Scotland- the Scottish Government still refers to the full figures and not just the Scottish responses.

I’d strongly encourage anyone with an interest to respond, especially anyone with experiences of the issue where they live, whether it be in schools or workplaces etc. The more responses, the better. It might end up being a waste of time, but surely it’s worth a try.

I second what rodgmum says but must stress, please hold off on completing your submission until the end of the consultation period. This is the advice from For Women Scotland who point out that this will allow all of us to

a) benefit from the response guides being currently prepared by a number of grassroots organisations (and I don't know about you, but I found the guides incredibly helpful last time round)

b) take any and all recent developments into account, both here and abroad (news stories about incidents, crimes, trials, convictions) that can provide evidence for the harm self-id may cause

c) refer with any luck to the upcoming review of policies in the Scottish Prison service, which has promised to take the needs of female staff and prisoners into account and may provide facts we could add to our submissions

d) take into account the upcoming judgements in the Maya Forstater and the FairCop case as well as other legal developments under way. These may provide us with important legal arguments to counter the Scottish Governments narrative

e) this may be obscure, but it will also allow us to take any and all relevant international human rights reports into account, both here and abroad (for instance, Finland which went full on gender neutral policy making just got slammed for doing so by international experts in the VAW sector, and Denmark which embraced mixed-sex prisons in 2005 (IIRC) is now rectifying the entirely predictable results by opening a female-only prison in 2020.) This would be pertinent to include in any response.

And please remember, the Scottish consultation closed in March 2018 when barely anyone knew about it and still 40% of submissions opposed self-id. That is phenomenal, especially considering that the campaign about the UK-wide consultation only ramped up afterwards and most of us wrote our submissions to the Scottish consultation without having much guidance.

And afterwards, the Scottish Government produced a report taking into account ALL responses, no matter where from, who by and what they said. So your voice definitely counts.

stumble, I think it was the suggestion that anyone outside Scotland may have their contributions disregarded that gave that impression. I took the same inference, so if that's not what you meant, fair enough.

It's really, really important that as many women respond d as possible - this is one chance we have to gather the evidence base that supports the need for female only provision & women from anywhere can have their say. I think this will be especially cathartic for women in countries where there already is an impact & where the laws were sneaked in under the 'veil' without any scrutiny or challenge.

I've bought my ticket for the forwomanscot event.

stumbledin
What part of what I wrote said dont bother????????????????

You said this:

I suspect response from those outside the UK will be disregarded unless it is a "known" group or probably a trans activist group from some other country with "evidence" that trans rights do not erase women's rights.

Like rodgmum, it seemed to me that you were implying that it wasn't worth people responding to the consultation if they were outside Scotland because their responses would be disregarded.

What a really strange pattern of thought.

We all know that most consultations are skewed. I just made a statement about what is blatantly obvious. That if there is a decision based on responses, it is inevitable that those is Scotland would be given preference or a weighting.

Just as I am sure that the consultation that the Tories conducted would have found ways to filter out those they thought have less connection.

Funnily enough I think the contributors to this board are more than grown up enough, and as we know from the number of threads on this, committed enough to bother to make a response.

Honestly, I only wish in my live that my words had that much power IRL!

Instead of presuming to assume what I was saying, it would have been more than enough to say even if anyone suspects contributions may be filtered out, we must make them aware of how women feel about this. I dont think there are any sheep on this forum.

As I said it is very global of them to have made it clear they will take contributions from any number of other countries.

The whole world is watching.

www.stonewallscotland.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/give-your-views-scottish-governments-draft-gender-recognition-bill

Stonewall's guidance for giving your view on Scottish GRA reform supports transition young.....

We support the Scottish Government’s proposals to lower the age for gender recognition to 16. This would be in line with the rights of 16- and 17-year olds in Scotland to marry, gain employment, vote, and be held legally responsible for their actions. We think that 16- and 17-year olds should also be able to change their birth certificate to match who they are.

However, we will be telling the Scottish Government that trans children and young people under the age of 16 should be able to update their birth certificates with aid of parental or guardian support. This would match with their existing ability to change their sex on their school records, medical records and passport. Often children and young people under 16 need to use their birth certificate more than adults do, so being able to change it is particularly important to protect their privacy.

Bumping to add that ForWomen.Scot have requested some hole digging.

We are planning adverts, videos, legal explainers, information packs, & materials for local groups - with the generous help of filmmakers, lawyers etc & the expertise of @fairplaywomen who ran a successful campaign for the UK consultation on the GRA.

Also to remind people that they are holding a public meeting: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-meeting-for-women-scotland-tickets-86438938191

I really don't agree with the idea of getting married at 16. Nor joining the armed forces at 16.
It feels very outdated to have child brides and child soldiers and now possibly children making statements about their identity that could affect their future.
I don't think the existence of child brides justifies children making this decision so early.
I do worry that the fixation on voting age being 16 means that other markers of adulthood are fine to sit at age 16.
I personally think voting at 16 is fine but it doesn't affect you the same as eg getting married.

So glad to have forwomen.scot helping us out here. I will go and find this hole of which you speak and dig it.

FWS are amazing I shall go dig for them some more

I see the hole is getting larger but still more digging to do. Get to it, gals!

Place marking