Sunak blocks Gender Reform Bill in Scotland!

 

Judge Lady Haldane

Rishi Sunak's Conservative government have blocked Scotland's new gender recognition law because of its likely impact on UK-wide equality laws. 

Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says it it's "a frontal attack on our democratically elected Scottish Parliament and its ability to make its own decisions on devolved matters."

Recent opinion polls show that two-thirds of Scottish voters are opposed to gender reform in Scotland. A majority of Scottish voters oppose transgender people being able to declare their own gender without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Under the Scottish law, this is not required. Women’s groups say gender reform in Scotland is wide open to abuse by sexually predatory males, who will be able to access women’s safe spaces.

In the 'For Women Scotland' case, Lady Haldane, in the Outer House of the Court of Sessions, ruled that the legal concept of 'sex' can and does include more than biological sex. According to her ruling, which some women’s groups have denounced as disastrous for the female sex, 'women' includes both biological women and those trans women who have obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate stating their sex is female. Any, Tom, Dick, or Harry, can now declare themselves a woman under Scotland's proposed Gender Reform Bill.

In January 2022, the prison minister, Victoria Atkins, told Tim Loughton MP, that the proportion of male-born trans women in the prison system who are sex offenders, was between 60% and 61.3%. This is significantly higher than the 41% figure claimed by Fair Play for Women, and the figure of 18% of the general population, held in male prisons, who are jailed for sexual offences. What these figures show, is not that 'trans people' are more likely than others, to commit sexual offences, but that men who commit sexual offences, are more likely than others, to claim to be transgender.