SNP goes to war with UK as three-day legal battle over trans rights begins today
The SNP is entering into a three-day legal battle with Westminster in order to settle a dispute over transgender rights
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The SNP is entering into a three-day legal battle with Westminster in order to settle a dispute over transgender rights.
The party is challenging the Government's decision to block a law introduced in Scotland earlier this year, which would have made it easier for trans people across the border to change their legal gender.
It would have sped up the process of acquiring a gender recognition certificate (GRC), which is seen as an integral part of trans inclusion.
The proposed reforms would remove the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, allowing people to apply for a GRC as long as they have been living as the gender they identify with for three months. This is a reduction from the current minimum of three years.
A total of 11 European countries have introduced similar reforms.
The Government blocked the legislation under Section 35 of the Scotland Act
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The plans would also allow 16 and 17 year-olds to legally change their gender. But people under the age of 18 would have to be living as the gender they identify with for at least six months.
The Government blocked the legislation under Section 35 of the Scotland Act, which allows a UK secretary of state to stop a bill from getting royal assent if they have reasonable grounds to believe the law would have an adverse effect on legislation reserved to Westminster.
Westminster’s decision to block the bill from going for royal assent is the first time Section 35 has been used.
Scottish Trans has said the current UK-wide requirements for applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate are overly laborious.
The organisation said: "The time, evidence, and money required, as well as the emotional toll of potentially having an application rejected, mean that many trans people do not apply – even those who have otherwise 'completed' every other aspect of their transition."
It adds: "This is very frustrating for many trans men and women who find that this slow, bureaucratic process is preventing them from otherwise just getting on with their lives.
"Many trans people know they are trans a long time before they socially, medically, and legally transition, and do not make the choice to do so lightly.
"Requiring at least two years of evidence is then an excessively long and arbitrary amount of time to ensure that someone is certain they want to change their legal sex, especially as they also have to make a statutory declaration as part of the process."
But critics say the law undermines sexual equality and poses a risk to women’s safety.
At the time the legislation was first introduced, Reem Alsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, warned: “Such proposals would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a GRC and the rights associated with it.
"This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity.
“The Scottish government … does not provide for any safeguarding measures to ensure that the procedure is not, as far as can be reasonably assured, abused by sexual predators and other perpetrators of violence.
"These include access to both single-sex spaces and gender-based spaces.”
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Before she resigned, Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish Government is dealing with the issue in an "appropriate way"
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At the time, then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "The government is dealing with this in an appropriate way.
"These are difficult issues - again issues not associated to changes to recent legislation - these are issues many countries are dealing with and we are dealing with them responsibly to give public satisfaction and reassurance and acting in a way that's challenging the notion that trans people generally pose threats to women or anyone else."
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