The Scottish Parliament on Thursday passed a controversial bill that would lower the age for the recognition of transgender people from 18 to 16 and remove a medical certificate requirement.
The new law would allow anyone aged 18 and over to apply for a gender-recognition certificate without a doctor’s certificate if they lived in their declared gender for three months or six months between the ages of 16 and 18.
Previously, applicants had to have identified as that gender for at least two years.
The bill also gives applicants a three-month “thinking period” to consider their decision.
The bill passed by 86 votes to 39. Scotland is the first region of the UK to pass such legislation, which exists in countries such as Denmark, Argentina and Ireland.
Spain’s controversial transgender law
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Spain also passed a law granting similar rights on the same day.
The Scottish Government has yet to set a date for the law to come into force in 2023. However, it could be preempted by London, where the UK’s ruling Conservative Party has expressed reservations about the text.
Why is the bill controversial?
Britain’s Conservative Party said on Thursday it shared “people’s concerns… about certain aspects of the bill” and promised to study it closely. The party fears the law could endanger the safety of women and children.
UK Government Secretary of State Alister Jack was quoted by Portal as saying the government could go so far as to stop the Royal Assent Bill if it needed to.
A little closer to Scotland, some suffragettes and Conservative lawmakers have argued that the bill would allow male sex offenders access to women-only spaces.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling is one of the most outspoken opponents of transgender law. Image: AP
“While most of us in Scotland are good, decent, reasonable people, rapists aren’t, sex offenders aren’t,” Conservative MP Rachael Hamilton was quoted as saying by AFP. “It is extremely ignorant to think that they will not exploit loopholes ripe for exploitation.”
Another staunch opponent of the bill is Harry Potter author JK Rowling, whose controversial 2020 essay on gender identity earned her transphobic accusations and social media attacks.
How has the Scottish Government defended the law?
The controversial bill drew significant opposition from Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. She described the previous path to becoming transgender as “intrusive, traumatic and dehumanizing”.
“I’m a feminist. I will stand up for women’s rights. I will do everything to protect women’s rights as long as I live,” she was quoted as saying by AFP during a lengthy debate on the law.
“But I also think that an important part of my responsibility is to make life a little bit easier for stigmatized minorities in our country, to make their lives a little bit better and to take away some of the trauma that they live with on a day-to-day basis.” .”
The bill has met with much opposition from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Image: John Linton/empics/picture alliance
Scottish Social Justice Minister Shona Robison also defended the law, saying other countries that passed similar legislation have seen a “remarkable” drop in violence against transgender people.
“I think we can all hope that trans people in Scotland can also benefit from these positive outcomes as the law removes barriers to exercising their human rights,” Portal quoted Robison as saying before the vote.
rmt/jcg (AFP, Portal)