Gender recognition law review vowed as SNP bids to improve LGBTI equality

By The Press Association1st April 2016News ScotlandInequalities, LGBTQ+, News Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon has promised to review and reform gender recognition law for trans people as part of a series of commitments on LGBTI equality.

The SNP leader has also pledged “refreshed, age-appropriate strategies and resources” for children to promote tolerance and respect, and prevent prejudice about healthy relationships.

Under her plans, all new, guidance and promoted teachers will also undertake training on equality so they can tackle prejudice-based bullying in schools.

Ms Sturgeon said young people should be supported to make informed choices about their gender and sexual identity.

The commitments were welcomed by equalities organisations.

The Scottish Transgender Alliance said the review of gender recognition law could allow young people to legally change their gender, with their parents’ support if they are under 16.

Ms Sturgeon outlined her equality pledges ahead of an LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex) hustings event with the party leaders in Edinburgh.

In addition, an SNP government will w ork towards every professional working with children being trained on equality, addressing prejudice-based bullying, attachment, child development and child protection, and a im for all police officers to receive appropriate training on the investigation of hate crime.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I’m proud that Scotland has made significant progress on LGBTI equality in recent years, however the very fact that we are still having debates like this at election time just underlines that there is still much that we need to do.

“In particular I want to see a renewed focus on areas such as education – both for young people themselves and those responsible for their emotional and educational wellbeing.

“Tolerance, respect, inclusion – these are attitudes and principles we want to encourage and foster in modern, fairer Scotland.

“Enabling young people to make informed choices about their gender and sexual identity is about supporting them to be themselves so that they might fulfil their potential.

“I am hopeful that in the next Scottish Parliament we can build as much consensus on LGBTI issues as we did in this session – and take another leap forward for equality.”

James Morton, manager of the Scottish Transgender Alliance, said: “We are very pleased to see the SNP pledge to reform gender recognition law for all trans people, in line with international best practice.

“That would mean enabling people to change the gender on their birth certificate without intrusive medical diagnosis, recognising trans people as the experts on their own identities.

“It would allow young people to legally change their gender, with parents’ support if under 16.

“It would also mean the law recognising that some people have a non-binary gender, that is they are neither men nor women.

“We hope that the other parties will match this commitment and we look forward to working on this with whoever forms the next Scottish Government.”

But the Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, Rev David Robertson, said the “SNP are now seeking to destroy the traditional idea of gender”.

He added: “The SNP seem to be working on the unproven and somewhat bizarre notion that children get to choose their own gender and sexuality.

“We believe that this will result in confusion and brokenness amongst our children rather than fulfilled potential.”

He added: “This is nothing less than state-sponsored indoctrination of the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society.

“Rather than being diverted into this particular dangerous ideology, the SNP should be far more concerned about real equality in education where under their stewardship the gap between rich and poor has increased.”

At the hustings event in the capital the plans received cross-party support with all party leaders backing a review of gender recognition law.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said her manifesto would commit to legislating to remove the psychiatric diagnosis requirement from legal gender recognition, reduce to 16 the age at which people can get legal recognition of the gender they live as and ensure legal protection for people who do not identify as either men or women.

On the education proposals, she added: “We’ve got to give teachers the confidence to teach LGBT issues whether that’s in social education or elsewhere in the curriculum.”

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: “I want to get to a stage where absolutely every teacher in every school in Scotland feels equipped to be able to deal with these issues because every child needs to be able to trust the people in their schools.”

She called for relationship, sexual health and parenthood education to be updated much more often “to be able to keep up with the kind of evolving relationship that young people have with sexuality and gender and the way in which it is expressed in their schools.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “I think we should be making more progress on education. I don’t think we should just be training a small number of teachers I think we should be training all teachers.

“We should be getting gender recognition right, we need to remove the archaic system that we have just now. People should have the right to choose for themselves.”

Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie highlighted the “unspoken issue” of faith schools.

He said: “If we’re talking about all teachers then we’re also talking about all schools. And although there is good and bad practice on both sides of the denominational divide, we still aren’t acknowledging that a great many young people are being education in an ethos which says a lot of us in this room are, and believe it or not they use this phrase, inherently morally defective.”

The hustings was briefly interrupted at one point by repeated shouting from someone outside the venue.

Responding to the minor disruption, Ms Davidson said: “The change in the room from hearing that person outside just reminds all of us how far, one, we’ve still got to go and what it felt like to be back there.

“The heartening thing for me is that we’re the people in this room having these discussions and we’re doing it in a mature way and we’re doing it in a way in which we’re trying to find a way forward, and he’s the person out in the cold shouting at the wind and it used to be the other way around. So that’s how far we’ve come.”