Today, the Scottish Government has published its analysis of responses to the consultation on the draft Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which ran from October 2019 – March 2020. This consultation asked individuals and organisations to let the Scottish Government know what they thought about their specific proposals for a bill which would make the process by which trans people can change the sex recorded on our birth certificates easier.

What did it tell us?

Some (very quick) headlines…

A bit more than half of organisations supported making the process simpler

A bit more than half of organisations supported allowing 16 and 17 year olds to apply for legal gender recognition (currently its 18+)

View of individuals tended to be split one of two ways. Either they:

• thought the proposals were good, but didn’t go far enough, or;
• opposed the proposals altogether

What next?

Whilst it was understandable that reforms were paused last year due to the coronavirus crisis, we welcome that the analysis has now been published, as it is an important step towards finally reforming the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland.

With more than three quarters of MSPs in Holyrood, from four of the five political parties, elected on manifesto commitments to reform this law, we hope and expect that changes can be brought forward as soon as possible.

To read the consultation analysis: https://bit.ly/2WGpY3b

For a recap of what was in the Bill, and what we thought the good bits and bad bits were: https://equalrecognition.scot/supportthedraftbill/