The Council of Europe might claim to be focussed on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, but lately the Strasbourg-based human rights organisation has been championing a new cause: the propagation of gender identity ideology. A paper released earlier this month by the Council’s Commissioner for Human Rights should ring alarm bells across the continent. Human Rights and Gender Identity and Expression pulls no punches. The key recommendations are alarming, for example:
Yesterday’s* judgment by Lady Haldane is good news for everyone. She ruled that the UK Government was right when it blocked the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Much has already been written about why the bill was incompetent, and why it would have been bad news for women and children, but where does this decision leave transsexuals?
The SNP’s ill-fated gender reforms shaped Nicola Sturgeon’s last days as First Minister, but if Humza Yousaf has learned from the experience, he is not showing it. The SNP’s crown prince – or perhaps clown prince – is tying himself in knots over the sex of a double rapist who has just been sentenced to eight years.
The omnishambles playing out in Scottish politics makes one thing clear: Nicola Sturgeon has no clue what she is doing when it comes to trans rights. The First Minister’s flagship Gender Recognition Reform Bill has hit the buffers. Now an ‘urgent review’ has been launched on an issue that hardly requires much common sense: that transwomen should not be housed in women’s prisons.
On Monday* we learned that Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs) issued in Scotland might not be accepted in England and Wales. Last month Scotland passed its contentious Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which means that anyone over the age of 16 can legally change their gender after three months, even if they don’t have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
MSPs were up until the early hours last night* at Holyrood debating amendments to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland Bill). Make no mistake, this is an exceptionally bad piece of legislation in the making – though it might have been less bad had a few more of those amendments been accepted by Nicola Sturgeon’s government.
Un collectif de personnes transsexuelles s’est adressé à Reem Asalem — la rapporteuse spéciale des Nations Unies sur la violence contre les femmes, ses causes et ses conséquences — à propos de sa récente intervention concernant les propositions du gouvernement écossais sur la Réforme de la reconnaissance du genre (gender Rcognition Reform). J’ai organisé cette démarche. Voici l’intégralité de notre lettre.
Debbie Hayton