Who are the 'Gender Recognition Unit'? Mysterious Scottish government group supports Lorna Slater

[DomesticatedZombie]

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/fury-nicola-sturgeon-knocks-back-26936333

For Women Scotland made a complaint about Lorna Slater's recent remarks -

'Ms Slater alleged that volunteer-run grassroots women’s groups are funded by nefarious sources but she was unable to provide evidence and none has been found since.

She said: “My understanding is that there’s money in this from certain right-wing American groups that’s been flooding into organisations in the UK.”

She also accused JK Rowling of “putting trans lives at risk” with her views that have seen the author become the subject of hate and death threats.

Those who oppose the Scottish Government's Gender Recognitions Reforms (GRR) are “anti-trans”, racists or antisemites said Ms Slater in another comment that fuelled the complaint.'

The response has come from the 'Gender Recognition Unit' - which has no web presence and consists of five unnamed people.

'The statements have been viewed by Ms Sturgeon as being "entirely consistent with Government policy and fully comply with her obligations as a Minister."'

So presumably Sturgeon supports these nonsense allegations. On the basis of zero evidence. And thinks JK Rowling has put trans lives at risk, somehow.

FOI on them here:

www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202200276558/

'The name, title and contact details of the civil servant in charge of the Gender Recognition Unit
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested, because it is personal data of a third party, in that it consists of personal information that may identify an individual and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.'

Women Speak Scotland have met one of them!

womenspeakscotland.com/2022/02/20/letter-to-peter-hope-jones-head-of-gender-recognition-unit/

Wow, our tax pounds are being spent on a 'Non-Binary Working Group'. I'm sure everyone is very reassured.

www.gov.scot/publications/non-binary-working-group-minutes-september-2021/

'The Group discussed the problems with trying to separate sex and gender identity in the data. 0.04% who identified as non-binary amounted to 8 people across 20,000. It was not possible to do further analysis with such a small number.'

But - we have a working group! Meetings of seventeen important officials to discuss these 0.04% of the population!

Never mind disabilities, falling education attainment, the ferries, the roads, the cleansing, eh? We're on the nonbinary working group!

Dodgy bunch of grifters.

A parcel of rogues indeed

Another who has a background in criminal justice!

Would love to see JK challenge Sturgeon on this statement!

The MA (Hons) Cantab in Hope-Jones’ bio may be slightly misleading to many. Following a BA at Cambridge, after living in the real world for a decent period of time, three years in my day, and a nominal payment of say £10 you can promote it to an MA. It’s a Cambridge and Oxford peculiarity. It does not mean an extra year’s study on another course. It does not mean a fourth year of study in a Scottish University.

Hope-Jones legitimately identifies as an MA, and Cambridge University has formally awarded him an MA but others with MA’s they have lived experience of studying for may feel differently about the nature of his MA.

Whit?! That's really fucking unfair!

Leaving aside their latest bizarre response - It's not uncommon to spin off small teams of civil servants to focus on specific legislative issues. There's one for Scottish independence / constitutional matters I think. So in that respect the GRU is like any other group and its remit is to deal with the GRR bill.

Yes, that sounds reasonable. However! What is the 'non binary working group' when it's at home? There are, as far as I know, no plans to make laws based on nonbinary ....

'Non-Binary Working Group'

I read that as 'Non-Binary Walking Group'

Last I heard, there were more civil servants working on gender reform than dealing with independence.

There are, as far as I know, no plans to make laws based on nonbinary ....

Not yet, but give it time.

A hallmark of gender activism is backdoor deals via all kinds of opaque and unaccountable groups riding the gravy train. I think some women's groups tried to find out how stakeholders could be part of this non-binary working group, but no information was forthcoming.

I think "MA (Hons) Cantab" is wrong - there are no honours awarded for Cambridge MAs. It should just be "MA (Cantab)".

Leaving aside their latest bizarre response - It's not uncommon to spin off small teams of civil servants to focus on specific legislative issues. There's one for Scottish independence / constitutional matters I think. So in that respect the GRU is like any other group and its remit is to deal with the GRR bill.

I don't know about that. We've just come out of the Hate Crime Bill, a major piece of legislation that was equally contested and one for which the Govt even managed to do a roadshow of public meetings on - and it didn't need its own dedicated "policy and administration" unit.

Cambridge, Oxford and apparently Dublin all operate the BA to MA promotion scheme:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambridge,_and_Dublin)

I hope that link works. It seems to be getting formatted strangely. If not, just look up Master of Arts CAmbridge, Oxford Dublin in Wikipedia.

I read it as "Non-Binary Woking Group."

You're right! I'd completely forgotten about that.