Scot Govt links gender self-ID critics to racial segregationists

Campaigners for safe single-sex spaces have been likened to racial segregationists in an article cited by the Scottish Government to support its plans to allow over-16s to choose their own legal gender.

In an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) accompanying the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, Ministers referenced Professor Suzanne Eckes’ work on transgender access to school restrooms.

Prof Eckes’ controversial paper, ‘The restroom and locker room wars’, first appeared in the Journal of LGBT Youth in 2017.

1950s racism

Eckes draws parallels between objections to “having a transgender student in the restroom” and racists’ complaints to white and black students sharing restrooms in 1950s America.

She states: “ there is no evidence that any transgender student has tried to assault another student or created any such safety hazard in a restroom.”

However, in October 2021, a skirt-wearing male student was found guilty of sexually assaulting a female student in the ladies’ toilets at the school in Loudoun County, Virginia. A second assault was subsequently reported against the same boy at a different school in the county.

Despite the assault, the School Board changed its policy to allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms according to their ‘gender identity’ rather than biological sex.

‘Offensive’

The Scottish Government was criticised by the policy analysis group MurrayBlackburnMackenzie for giving credence to the comparison.

MurrayBlackburnMackenzie said: “In the last consultation we stated the Scottish Government should make clear that the analogy between women’s discomfort at male presence in spaces such as changing rooms, and racial prejudice, was both false and offensive”.

“It is worrying that officials are still relying on these problematic papers to dismiss concerns about the impact of reform on single-sex services and spaces.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We absolutely refute this comparison. In developing the Equality Impact Assessment, the Scottish Government considers a range of evidence and sources.”