The Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland, which would allow individuals to change the sex on their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, has now been published.
The Scottish Government’s stated aim is to streamline the process allowing transgender people to self-identify in a less invasive way. The current requirement for evidence that an applicant has lived in their acquired gender for at least two years will be reduced to six months and the lower age limit cut to 16 instead of 18 years.
However, Kate Forbes MSP, the SNP’s finance secretary and a Christian – who has been tipped as a possible future First Minister – said her party’s approach to law reform on the issue was so flawed as to risk creating ‘bad law’. She said many Scots feel ‘disenfranchised’ from the discussion.
Ciarán Kelly from the Christian Institute said the move ‘expands the legal fiction that men can become women and women can become men. You cannot change your biological sex… Despite the Scottish Government’s protestations, we know this is going to have an adverse impact on single-sex spaces.’
Chris Ringland, public policy officer at Evangelical Alliance Scotland, said: ‘We have three main concerns around the Bill as it currently stands’ – particularly in relation to the potential unintended consequences for children around parental consent, schools and residentials, pastoral care and sports.
Meanwhile, the highest court in Scotland has ruled against the Scottish Government and said it cannot change the legal definition of women to include men identifying as women.
(See James Mildred's analysis here).
A helpful challenge – but I don’t recognise those views
This article was written in response to the article "Same-sex attraction and identity: Are evangelicals on the right track?" …