The Times - Gender recognition act: MSPs only listening to one side, claims scientist

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www.thetimes.co.uk/article/546c16bc-e449-11ec-b1fd-7961028c5981?shareToken=fc2170ccc12635fbaaa61e50e7a53424

Thank you for share token.

I began by wondering why Scotland is so very captured, but then I realised that almost everywhere is. But the opposition seems to be making more headway in other places.

The problem we have in Scotland is 3 fold, firstly the SNP is a dictatorship in all but name and whatever Stergon says is SNP law (she is completely captured). Secondly the Scottish government has put a gagging clause in all government funding grants that says that the group's receiving funding must never contradict the government or they will have to return all of the money that they received from the Scottish government (very sinister). Thirdly we have the whole problem about the way the Scottish parliament is set up with proportional representation, the lack of parliamentary immunity, the way its linked to the civil service and judiciary and most importantly there's no second chamber to hold the government to task over bad laws

Thanks for the share. I am in Scotland and this is so concerning. I bet there is still a sizeable part of the population who have no idea this is about to happen, as well.

[Prof Alice Sullivan] said that the equalities, human rights and civil justice committee could have called “any number of esteemed social statisticians who have spoken out in favour of accurate data collection on sex alongside gender identity”.

The committee has been accused of turning to less qualified witnesses to give evidence, of inviting more supporters of reform — many in receipt of government funding — than opponents, and of setting aside insufficient time to consider a complex piece of law with serious implications.
…
The committee received 10,800 written responses. Some 59 per cent of those who replied disagreed with the overall purpose of the bill while 38 per cent agreed and 3 per cent indicated that they did not know.

I submitted a response. It took a long time. I have no confidence that they read it as there was less than 9hrs between the closing submission date and time and when the hearings started.

But, we have to keep turning up to do this, for the future that children will live in. For the women who loathe us for the stand we make and would strip up of our employment and send us to gulags if they could. For those who would wish
—us to 'die in a grease fire,'
—to throw 'napalm in our faces,'
—to dehumanize and monsterise us.

Adding to this a growing suspicion that Scotland has a very, very deep seated and long-standing and ingrained sexism to deal with.

On looking into Scottish history it's quite notable how few women are represented - it's hella sparse compared to other countries. Witch hunts, Magdalen laundries, and Presbyterian morals all feature quite strongly.

@Hoardasurass , thank you for that clarifying comment.

It's very similar to Canada, NZ, parts of Australia. I've wondered if it is something to do with the sense of being a colony? Or maybe the form of government, because it seems like these more ideological progressive governments are very happy to persue policy like this, as opposed to more pragmatic types of parties. Here in Canada Trudeau is quite happy to use any excuse to push the ideological agenda he wants, and there is no convincing them that maybe it's not a good evidence based approach. On any issue.

I think the importance of being seen to be "different"/"kinder" (except to women obviously) than big bad Tory England shouldn't be underestimated.

I despair of my country.

thanks for the link Pop

Because their end goal is (or was allegedly) independence, the SNP expend a lot of energy on proving they are different from Westminster and trying to emphasise the difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK. So everything that Westminster does, they have to do differently.

The SNP used to be 'the Tartan Tories' and are not especially progressive at heart. It's a strategy. I think the roots of it may have been well intentioned - in some ways a smaller country in the process of creating itself is better able to base legislation on evienced best practise. However, this has devolved rather quickly into putting a shiny spin on everything they do, forcing terrible legislation through parliament because it sounds impressive and most of all, different from what has gone before (named person, sectarian/football law/hate crime/gra).

They are seduced by the idea that anything that is different from the status quo is de facto a good thing. Wholly sold on a progressive utopia that is based on fuck all of solid theory/experience/evidence, as far as I can see.

(Meanwhile serious problems in the country's infrastructure, political and legislative structure etc are aggressively ignored, but that's another subject).

I agree with all of that analysis but surely the SNP is also captured in the same way as UK Labour and LibDem are captured. No idea what the real reason is (probably financial) but it has happened.
The reason the Tories starting to become captured under Cameron was likely because of the 2010 coalition with the LibDems and because the Tories were scared of being accused of repeating Thatcher's Section 28 against homosexuality.

Yes, it's a good question. I have no idea why the SNP refuse to roll back on a position once they've made a decision, nor why they bother having 'consultations' when the results are a foregone conclusion. This doesn't just apply to the GRA, it's a pattern.

I mean, I don't know whether they genuinely buy gender ideology, I think mostly it just seems to be defensive tribalism. They've decided their position and anything to the contrary is seen as 'hate'.

I think it may be because they are fundamentally ideologues. They think their consultation will show what they want. But when it doesn't - well obviously the people are wrong.

It reminds me of when the Guardian ran a special article asking commentors what to do about the BTL comments in their feminist stories. The comments said - please get better wroters/editors/fact checkers for the articles so we don't have to keep pointing out basic factual issues.

Guardian response - no more comments on those articles. Which continues to be quite poor.