Meeting of the Parliament 15 November 2023
Earlier this month, the Court of Session upheld an initial ruling that the legal definition of the word “woman” is not limited to a person of the female biological sex. That means that a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate—GRC—is given the same recognition in law as a biological woman.
Current legislation allows a trans woman to obtain a GRC if she has lived in her acquired gender for at least two years, is above the age of 18 and has received a suitable medical diagnosis. If the SNP-Green Government had its way, the process of obtaining a GRC would be made much easier by lowering the minimum age at which one can apply for a certificate to 16, removing the need for a medical diagnosis and significantly reducing to only three months the time period for which an applicant must have lived in the required gender. That would fundamentally change the definition of the word “woman” and would expand who would be eligible to sit on corporate boards as a woman.
Around this time last year, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, wrote that the Scottish Government must,
“as a minimum, await the outcome of judgments on these very issues in front of both the Scottish and UK courts”,
including the judgment in the case of the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018, before moving forward with the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
My Scottish Conservative colleagues repeatedly warned that the SNP Government’s gender self-identification bill would make it significantly easier to change legal gender. Now, as a result of the latest court ruling, the SNP Government is being forced to remove the definition of the word “woman” from the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. Just as with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, we are having to use up parliamentary time and resources to fix a piece of poorly drafted legislation. Taxpayers have already had to foot an almost £230,000 bill for the Government’s legal battles as it has tried to save its flawed gender self-ID bill, which is opposed by a majority of Scots. Now, more time and money will be spent on fixing the SNP Government’s latest mistake.
I hope that Scottish ministers will use this court case to finally learn their lesson.