Scottish Parliament final debate on Gender Recognition Reform today

[ArabellaScott]

At some point after 2pm, in the Big Room (the Chamber).

www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/whats-on-and-watch-live/whats-on#wm

Will be interesting to see how the Amendments go down, if they are all struck down as the ScotGov wishes - www.holyrood.com/news/view,gender-recognition-reform-crunch-vote-after-shona-robison-warns-msps-over-amendments

'the Scottish Conservatives have warned that the debate could lead to a "travesty of democracy" because a 15 minute time limit for each proposal will "shut down" discussion.'

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64032916

Mentions here of marriage age and I just checked - increasing to 18 in E&W in February 2023. Not in Scotland it seems.

You can get married in Scotland, it's true, but south of the border you again need parental consent. I suspect that there are probably a few who'd like that law changed anyway to make it more restrictive.

International human rights efforts by children's rights campaigners are to raise the legal age for marriage for all children until they are 18, so I would not ever mention the fact that children can get married at 16 in Scotland as a positive measure to justify lowering the age for a GRC.

In this and other issues, Scotland is out of step with the broad consensus internationally that children must be protected until the age of 18.

Don't even get me started on the moronic consent policy in Scotland that mandates that children from the age of 12 must give permission to their parents to be involved in their medical care. It's a blanket policy completely in conflict with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which mandates that the developing capacities of the (individual) child must be taken into account.

My GP told me this is an ill-considered change in practice that puts real children at risk of real harm. (He had a patient die and believes that wouldn't have happened without that policy.)

But that's not just for medical consent. I was told that my son had to consent himself to a data protection issue when he turned 12. I asked my son's school and then the local authority how they had ensured that these children could understand what they were consenting to, somethingthey are obliged to do when dealing with children. Communal shrug. It's just the policy, I was told.

Yeah, lots of carefully considered, child friendly policies hereabouts...

No, in Scotland they'll presumably be legislating for 6 year olds to get married.

Jeremy Vine covering this now on R2

Sorry if I'm repeating anyone - just rushed in from the car with several tons of groceries

So, assuming my previous analysis is true, only people who are prepared to break the law will be able to regularly change their identity by ‘updating’ their GRC?
I wonder what other characteristics that group might share??

Oh no, here's Patrick Harvie.

Thanks Arabella and everyone for this thread, just catching up today. We knew they were going to force it through but it is still profoundly depressing to watch it play out. I think back to my feelings of pride and optimism about devolution and the Scottish Parliament and I cannot believe what it has become.

I hope people listening to Patrick Harvie on Radio two heard him say "their birth certificate corrected" and let the madness of that roll over them

I've been pondering over this today too.

I was so happy to vote for this in 97.

We thought it would make life for people in Scotland better. And in many ways it has been really good. But they are going to remove sex as a protected characteristic and woman will not he equal in Scottish society.

This is not what I voted for.

It's not what I voted for either, and I also don't really believe that most MSPs got into politics so they could let rapists into women’s prisons. They are fooling themselves if they think passing this law is the end of the matter.

And yet all children needed a Named Person to represent them up until the age of 18 (with powers to override parents)and I think at one point they were considering 21 (though I may be mistaken).
Anyone remember the leaflet suggesting you could go to your named person if parents wouldn’t allow your choice of bedroom paint colour? Madness

I noticed that.

Also the word 'gender' liberally sprinkled throughout the discussion and sex not mentioned once. And 'living as a man/woman' without any attempt to define what that means, which seems pretty fucking crucial to the whole mad new order.

You would think that most trans people would want to get as far away as possible from being associated with rapists and sex offenders. No idea why the Scottish government think giving them a GRC is a good idea.

www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/meeting-of-the-parliament-december-21-2022

Jamie Greene up now. Discussing 'fraud' wrt GRCs

The UK is definitely a problematic anomaly in relation to important aspects of children’s rights. And Scotland more so.

Letting children join the armed forces is, frankly, unacceptable internationally. The UK is in an indefensible position. in fact, the child soldiers protocol is ‘optional’ in children’s rights largely because of the UK. Which is something to be ashamed of.

There are established campaigns for ‘zero under 18’ and the UN has criticised the UK on its child soldiers: www.forceswatch.net/resources/un-observations-on-uk-and-childrens-rights/

the UN is also campaigning to end child marriageable (anyone under 18). UNICEF describe this as: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for global action to end this human rights violation by 2030. (www.unicef.org/protection/child-marriage).

And yet, we have Scottish politicians standing in parliament and valorising the kinds of practices (that are the stuff of shock documentaries about the ‘savage’ practices in other places) as a pretext for this dreadful bill.

I am utterly ashamed to be Scottish.

If these people were ‘on the right side of history’, they would presumably be joining the international consensus that people under 18 should not fight in armed conflicts or get married.

JG - app is fraudulent if app makes a declaration which is false or b includes false info

essentially if someone makes a false dec, which is a distinct possibility, then GRC obtained through fraudulent means. That's an offence. If person goes on to commit further offence (sex offence, violence etc) and court admits GRC factor material or facilitating, that woudl be aggravated offense.

JG now talkig about Barker, McNally, Wilson who committed sexual assault and were - he's saying 'trans men' but I think he means males, transwomen.

Not at all it was very kind of you to post it fully.

so at the mercy of our PO who does what she's telt
what an absolute cluster fuck our parliament is

Ruth Maguire intervenes:

difference bewteen previous act and new act - latter has removal of medical diagnosis requirement.

Is that not arbitrary criteria?

JG - still a statutory offense [this is meaningless, if there's no requirement or criteria how can it be 'fraudulent'?]

app is fraudulent if app makes a declaration which is false or b includes false info

But what questions are being asked in the application that there could be false answers to?

When doing immigration forms to the US or something they make you answer all those dumb questions like "are you a terrorist?" simply so there CAN be legal penalties for the false answers.

But there aren't any questions here, are there?

'made falsely' statutary declaration - I think this is suggesting that someone might 'pretend' to be trans, and that's illegal. But how on earth could anyone tell?

how do you define a fraudulent application when there is no fixed parameters for making a non-fraudulent application?

’living as a man/woman’ is meaningless, especially so if you say ‘oh, I identify as x but I present as y’ as described by the genderbread person.

I don't think so, Necessary. It's all quite opaque. What on earth 'false' means in this context I cannot see.

Those cases are here:

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/sex-matters-responds-to-cps-consultation/

McNally is a natal female who said she was a male as one example.

Ah, I see, thank you. That ties with the 'sex by deception' rules - I wonder how that will interact with this new Bill?