Scottish Ministers and NHS priorities
The Sunday Times reports that Scottish Ministers have found an extra £2 million for gender identity services.
"This month the Scottish government announced £2 million of funding for gender identity services to help cut waiting times for trans healthcare."
Now it's not clear what this money is for, or who stands to benefit from this big injection of public cash, but lots of people are waiting for NHS treatment including thousands in the current 3 year queue for cataract operations to have their sight restored.
Ministers face public backlash over gender recognition reform plans
Activists argue that changes to the law will erode women’s rights - Photo ALAMY
By John Boothman and Jason Allardyce - The Sunday Times
Scottish ministers are facing a massive public backlash over their planned gender recognition reforms, according to a poll.
A Panelbase survey suggests the vast majority of voters in Scotland (71 per cent) oppose their plan to let people officially change gender quickly without providing medical evidence of gender dysphoria. Ministers plan to allow trans people to apply for a gender recognition certificate after declaring that they have lived in their acquired gender for three months, and then wait just three months for the certificate to be granted.
The plan follows complaints that current procedures, which can mean transgender people wait for two years for formal recognition, are bureaucratic, invasive and humiliating. This month the Scottish government announced £2 million of funding for gender identity services to help cut waiting times for trans healthcare.
But the poll, commissioned by the group For Women Scotland, found only 29 per cent of voters support the Scottish government’s “self-ID” plan to let people switch gender without needing to be assessed by medical professionals.
There is also widespread unease over a range of other related issues, ranging from safety in female-only spaces and gender reassignment surgery for children to children switching gender at school without parental consent.
Last weekend The Sunday Times reported that Police Scotland intend to record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”. The writer JK Rowling condemned that approach as Orwellian.
The poll finds a high level of concern over the implications of gender recognition reforms for spaces currently confined to those who are biologically female, a concern shared by some of the SNP’s own parliamentarians.
Just over two thirds (67 per cent) believed trans-women should not gain full access to female-only spaces such as changing rooms, hospital wards and women’s refuges if they still have a penis, while a third who expressed an opinion thought they should.
At the same time, 86 per cent believe that women and girls have the right to expect to be able to receive care, including intimate care, from biologically female staff in hospitals, care homes and rape crisis centres while 14 per cent disagree.
New Scottish government guidance for schools states that pupils who want to change their name and sex in school records require parental consent only if they are under 16. But 73 per cent of voters oppose any child being allowed to make such changes without parental approval if they are under 18.
Similarly, 81 per cent are against under-18s being able to access sex reassignment surgery, such as double mastectomies or hormone treatments while 19 per cent approve of the idea. The Scottish government is currently facing a legal challenge over plans for next year’s delayed census to allow respondents to self-identify.
A feminist campaigning and consultancy organisation, Fair Play for Women, has initiated a judicial review, claiming that the census guidance is “unlawful and directly impacts the rights of women and girls”.
Earlier this year the group won a case south of the border, which ruled that people in England and Wales must base their answer on the sex written on their birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.
The SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a vocal critic of aspects of the proposed gender recognition changes, said: “These poll findings are stark and demonstrate very significant public opposition to the government’s current proposals for self-identification of sex.”
She said that Scotland had very good rights-based protections for women and girls and for trans people but warned: “We are at risk of undermining this if we do not seek to address the significant problems with the planned legislation.”
Cherry renewed her call for the issues to be considered in depth by a citizens’ assembly “as a way of moving past the current impasse”.
Marion Calder, co-founder of For Women Scotland, a feminist group, said that ministers were “rushing into legislation with no regard as to the impact on women’s rights, and have completely forgotten as to why we sometimes need to separate spaces by sex”.
She added: “Allowing the teaching in schools of the ideology that it is possible to change sex will have far-reaching and damaging consequences for Scottish children, which the Scottish government will have to address in the not-too-distant future. Unless halted it will be their shameful legacy.”
Maggie Mellon, former vice-chairwoman of the British Association of Social Workers, said the government plans were “very out of step” with most people.
She added: “Already over 50 teenage girls have been referred to England for mastectomies. These and puberty blockers and hormones are life-changing decisions that children should not be allowed to make.
“They have brought in policies like this by stealth and, I think, hoped that they could legislate without any real challenge. This is interference in children’s and families’ lives masquerading as progress.”
The Equality Network did not comment. But Vic Valentine, manager of its Scottish Trans Alliance team, recently described the proposed changes as “a real step forward” and pointed out that 72 per cent of MSPs were elected on manifesto commitments to change the law.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “We recognise concerns raised by some women’s groups. Our proposals to reform the current gender recognition act do not introduce any new rights for trans people or change single-sex exceptions in the equality act.”
He said the government is committed to making changes “to improve and simplify the process by which a trans person can obtain legal recognition”.
He added: “We will do this while ensuring we uphold the rights and protections that women and girls currently have under the equality act.”
Scottish ministers are facing a massive public backlash over their planned gender recognition reforms, according to a poll.
A Panelbase survey suggests the vast majority of voters in Scotland (71 per cent) oppose their plan to let people officially change gender quickly without providing medical evidence of gender dysphoria. Ministers plan to allow trans people to apply for a gender recognition certificate after declaring that they have lived in their acquired gender for three months, and then wait just three months for the certificate to be granted.
The plan follows complaints that current procedures, which can mean transgender people wait for two years for formal recognition, are bureaucratic, invasive and humiliating. This month the Scottish government announced £2 million of funding for gender identity services to help cut waiting times for trans healthcare.
But the poll, commissioned by the group For Women Scotland, found only 29 per cent of voters support the Scottish government’s “self-ID” plan to let people switch gender without needing to be assessed by medical professionals.
There is also widespread unease over a range of other related issues, ranging from safety in female-only spaces and gender reassignment surgery for children to children switching gender at school without parental consent.
Last weekend The Sunday Times reported that Police Scotland intend to record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”. The writer JK Rowling condemned that approach as Orwellian.
The poll finds a high level of concern over the implications of gender recognition reforms for spaces currently confined to those who are biologically female, a concern shared by some of the SNP’s own parliamentarians.
Just over two thirds (67 per cent) believed trans-women should not gain full access to female-only spaces such as changing rooms, hospital wards and women’s refuges if they still have a penis, while a third who expressed an opinion thought they should.
At the same time, 86 per cent believe that women and girls have the right to expect to be able to receive care, including intimate care, from biologically female staff in hospitals, care homes and rape crisis centres while 14 per cent disagree.
New Scottish government guidance for schools states that pupils who want to change their name and sex in school records require parental consent only if they are under 16. But 73 per cent of voters oppose any child being allowed to make such changes without parental approval if they are under 18.
Similarly, 81 per cent are against under-18s being able to access sex reassignment surgery, such as double mastectomies or hormone treatments while 19 per cent approve of the idea. The Scottish government is currently facing a legal challenge over plans for next year’s delayed census to allow respondents to self-identify.
A feminist campaigning and consultancy organisation, Fair Play for Women, has initiated a judicial review, claiming that the census guidance is “unlawful and directly impacts the rights of women and girls”.
Earlier this year the group won a case south of the border, which ruled that people in England and Wales must base their answer on the sex written on their birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.
The SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a vocal critic of aspects of the proposed gender recognition changes, said: “These poll findings are stark and demonstrate very significant public opposition to the government’s current proposals for self-identification of sex.”
She said that Scotland had very good rights-based protections for women and girls and for trans people but warned: “We are at risk of undermining this if we do not seek to address the significant problems with the planned legislation.”
Cherry renewed her call for the issues to be considered in depth by a citizens’ assembly “as a way of moving past the current impasse”.
Marion Calder, co-founder of For Women Scotland, a feminist group, said that ministers were “rushing into legislation with no regard as to the impact on women’s rights, and have completely forgotten as to why we sometimes need to separate spaces by sex”.
She added: “Allowing the teaching in schools of the ideology that it is possible to change sex will have far-reaching and damaging consequences for Scottish children, which the Scottish government will have to address in the not-too-distant future. Unless halted it will be their shameful legacy.”
Maggie Mellon, former vice-chairwoman of the British Association of Social Workers, said the government plans were “very out of step” with most people.
She added: “Already over 50 teenage girls have been referred to England for mastectomies. These and puberty blockers and hormones are life-changing decisions that children should not be allowed to make.
“They have brought in policies like this by stealth and, I think, hoped that they could legislate without any real challenge. This is interference in children’s and families’ lives masquerading as progress.”
The Equality Network did not comment. But Vic Valentine, manager of its Scottish Trans Alliance team, recently described the proposed changes as “a real step forward” and pointed out that 72 per cent of MSPs were elected on manifesto commitments to change the law.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “We recognise concerns raised by some women’s groups. Our proposals to reform the current gender recognition act do not introduce any new rights for trans people or change single-sex exceptions in the equality act.”
He said the government is committed to making changes “to improve and simplify the process by which a trans person can obtain legal recognition”.
He added: “We will do this while ensuring we uphold the rights and protections that women and girls currently have under the equality act.”
