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

Thank you Arabella, you have done sterling work.

Will it be possible to tell whether a GRC is Scottish or English (not that you can ask to see it)?

This is buckets. From what I’ve seen with friends who are trans, get a GRC is a true validation, if anyone can get one, where’s the validation?

Thank you Arabella! You’ve made this much easier to follow and have support on hand. Have a restful night.

Thank you @Arabella!

Thank you Arabella.

Thank you for your commentary and thank you for this clarification. I've just listened to two points of order trying to work out whether the bill would be voted on tonight or not.

It's outrageous the way they are pushing this through so quickly. I've also reached the ends of my ability to concentrate. Goodness knows how the MSPs are still managing to focus.

Thank you for the coverage @ArabellaScott

I’m delighted to see how much sunlight this is getting (finally) in the mainstream media - a dedicated feed on the BBC news website and a lengthy piece on Channel 4 News this evening.

Bring on the Peaking!

Pam Gosal knocking it out of the park describing the impact on women of faith. Calling out that to be truely inclusive, the Scottish Parliament has to include women of faith and women with disabilities

She’s back!! twitter.com/theposieparker/status/1605663118402600961?s=21&t=PWXzDYgfqtMOfbm25dj7Mw

KJK - let the fireworks begin!

Brian Whittle - sports - committee listened to men & TRAs but not sports women
Sports women missing out & unable to voice their protest

Absolutely! Brilliant stuff.

I thought I despised these politicians before, I didn't realise how low my opinion of them could drop

Nice work Arabella unlike the Scottish MSPs

I wonder what's just happened?

Having a meeting going on for this long for a non emergency issue isn't sensible or healthy. Hope the person is OK

Thanks, Arabella - that was a powerful speech from Ash.

Couldn't resist checking back in.

Fucksake, they're heckling Jeremy Balfour for asking for an adjournment.

Disgraceful.

Person took ill but seem to be okay now. Hope they are recovered.

PO says they will continue, no adjournment.

Looks like this is going to be passed by hook or by crook.

To ask a silly question perhaps, does this mean an English resident can use the Scottish system to easily change their birth sex? A type of gender tourism kind of thing? They can then use this to gain access to women's refuges etc in England?

Someone has to be 'ordinarily resident' in Scotland to access. I'm not quite sure what this entails.

There's some commentary about "ordinarily resident" here in relation to university students:

fairplayforwomen.com/self-id-by-back-door/

For anyone who would like to know why it not survivors but Shona Robison who is misinformed on the issue of self-exclusion in Scotland, here is the letter referenced by Reem Alsalem in her intervention:

www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/committees/current-and-previous-committees/session-6-equalities-human-rights-and-civil-justice-committee/correspondence/2022/gender-recognition-reform-letter-from-heal-survivors-group

There was something about a Scottish address for 3 months at one point... can't go expecting clarity in laws though

I suppose it will be up to E&W to decide if they will recognise Scotland's GRCs but no idea how as you only get to see a birth certificate so don't know how they'd decide whose birth certificate is real (& how would they know the difference between self ID new certs & old school medical diagnosis new certs)

whole thing is baffling

I'm finding it very stressful how often I am mentally applauding conservative MSPs tonight.

Mercedes Villalba claims previous speaker was 'bordering on hate speech'.

So just speech then?!