Scotland to run new consultations before updating gender law

Jun 22, 2019 by Jill

by Severin Carrell, Guardian:

Equalities secretary says government failed to address concerns over rights of others in single-sex spaces.

The Scottish government has postponed a planned update of gender recognition laws after concluding that it had failed to address concerns about the impact of its proposals.

Shirley Anne Somerville, the equalities secretary, said she would launch new consultations to ensure that anxieties that women and girls could fall victim to predatory men or lose access to single-sex services were properly addressed.

Somerville said the Scottish government was determined to update the legal rights of trans men and women, with a simpler, quicker process to allow people to get a new gender recognition certificate through self-declaration rather than requiring medical evidence.

Ministers wanted to allow trans men and women to get a certificate six months after starting to live in their acquired gender, after signing a legally binding statutory declaration.

Read here

Read also: The fight by women has just begun and Scotland is at the forefront, by Joan McAlpine MSP, WomansPlace UK