Nicola Sturgeon has been slammed for endangering single-sex spaces by pushing ahead with plans to allow people as young as 16 to choose their legal sex.
During the First Minister’s speech at an event for Zero Tolerance, a charity which campaigns to end male violence against women, an attendee interrupted: “I’ve received rape threats, death threats from men who self-ID as women. Women are being assaulted because they are standing up for women’s rights.
“Shame on you. You have fermented this culture in Scotland. I see you, and thousands of women in Scotland see you too.”
‘Silenced and sidelined’
Under the current law, only adults are able to change legal sex. The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill extends ‘sex swaps’ to 16-year-olds, whilst also removing the need for medical evidence and reducing the two-year waiting period to three months for over 18s.
Zero Tolerance instructed attendees prior to its event not to raise concerns over the Bill’s impact on single-sex spaces or the definition of women.
But Angela Devine, Chief Executive of domestic violence charity Glasgow Women’s Aid, said: “How can I preserve single sex safe spaces in this climate, with this utter disregard for all the amazing women in Scotland all the fabulous women we support, all the experiences that go with it. We are being silenced and silently sidelined.”
A Scottish Government spokesman stated that it did not request Zero Tolerance to limit discussion in any form.
‘Irreversible’
Detransitioners Sinéad Watson and Ritchie Herron have met with SNP MSP Ruth Maguire and Scottish Labour MSP Pauline McNeill to raise concerns about the Bill’s impact on gender-confused young people.
In an interview with GB News, Watson highlighted that many of gender-confused people are on the autistic spectrum and suffer from “depression and anxiety and other forms of self-hatred, like eating disorders. This is a very complex group. We cannot de-medicalise it.”
She added: “When it comes to something like this, where the inevitable pathway is medical transition that irreversibly changes your body and in many cases can harm you – as cross-sex hormones harmed me – there needs to be some medical supervision, there needs to be therapy, there needs to be treatment.”
‘Real concerns’
A survey by Scottish Labour’s Women’s Committee found that despite the party’s backing of the gender self-ID Bill, 45 per cent of female members opposed the plans with only 28 per cent in favour.
There were just 165 responses to the survey, but an anonymous source reported: “This survey was buried and most women never even received it. But even that showed there are real concerns.”
Scottish Conservative MSP Russell Findlay said that he intends to discuss his defeated amendment, which would prevent sex offenders from accessing women’s prisons by changing legal sex under the Bill, with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government.
Earlier this month, The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee approved an amendment to extend the waiting period for 16 and 17-year-olds from three months to six, but rejected another amendment that would have excluded under 18s from the legislation.
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