It has been hard to miss the reaction to the Scottish Government’s proposal in its hate crime bill to extend the crime of ‘stirring up hatred’ to a wider range of situations than now. Currently, “stirring up” offences apply only…
Read More Options for securing consensus on the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill
Today’s statement by Liz Truss brings much needed clarity on the UK Government’s proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act. We have previously argued that a shift to a system of self-declaration, without the requirement for a diagnosis of gender…
Read More MurrayBlackburnMackenzie response to the UK Government GRA announcement
In response to a recent parliamentary question by Labour MSP James Kelly on the proposed stirring up hatred offences in the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, and whether these should be fully deleted or heavily amended, the First…
Read More The limits of precedent and the special case of racial hatred
The Hate Crime and Public Order Bill provides for ‘Variations in Sex Characteristics’ (VSCs) as a standalone protected characteristic. This represents a change from the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009, which currently classifies ‘intersexuality’ under ‘transgender identity’. The…
This blog looks at how the characteristic ‘transgender identity’ is defined in the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill, and in public policy more widely. We argue that a failure to clarify what is meant by this term is likely…
Read More Defining transgender identity in the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill and beyond
The UK is losing robust data on sex and the framing of the sex question in the 2021 census is set to make the situation worse. The sex question in the 2021 census will ask whether a person is…
Read More Domino effects: the implications of the framing the sex question in the 2021 census
Over the weekend, it was reported in The Sunday Times that the UK Government is scrapping plans to allow individuals in England and Wales to change legal sex simply by making a statutory declaration (often referred to as self-identification). The…
Read More A fork in the road? Comparing plans for gender recognition reform across the UK
We welcome today’s formal statement on the Scottish Government’s plans in relation to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. The government has confirmed that work on the Bill is being suspended, as part of its response to the current emergency. The…
Cited by the Scottish Government as its main example of ‘international best practice’, in 2015 the Irish Government passed the Gender Recognition Act. Yet the vast majority of Irish people have little or no awareness of the degree of legislative…
Read More From medical assessment to affirmation: legal gender self-declaration in Ireland
Introduction Since November 2018, an intense debate has broken out over whether the sex question in the 2021 census should be framed in terms of self-declared gender identity, legal or biological sex. We have previously argued that we think that…
