On 20 February 2023 the Daily Mail reported that Police Scotland had withdrawn from the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI) scheme. The scheme is described by Stonewall as ‘the definitive benchmarking tool for employers to measure their progress on lesbian,…
Read More Police Scotland: Leaving the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index
On Wednesday 22 February, the Scottish Parliament's Criminal Justice Committee will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice Keith Brown MSP and the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service Teresa Medhurst. In anticipation of that session, we have…
Read More Briefing note on SPS Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy
Women and the Scottish Parliament: what the Gender Recognition Reform Bill taught us So first of all thank you for inviting me to speak on behalf of the three of us who make up MurrayBlackburnMackenzie. Before I do anything else,…
Read More Lucy Hunter Blackburn: Speech to Forth Valley Feminists’ Women’s Festival, 4 February 2023
For over half a decade the Scottish Government has worked on its proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act. That represents a third of the time the current Government has been in office. So what has changed? In terms of…
Read More Lisa Mackenzie: Speech at rally for women’s rights, Scottish Parliament. 6 October 2022
Following the conclusion of the oral evidence sessions on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, we wrote to the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee to provide supplementary material we hoped would be helpful to the Committee as it…
Read More MBM supplementary note on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill to EHRCJ Committee
The note below was sent yesterday to all MSPs on behalf of a number of women's groups, following the first public session of Stage 1 of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill on Tuesday 17 May. It sets out why…
Our written evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee can be found here. Our submission highlights that: The equality impact assessment (EqIA) of the draft legislation has barely changed since the EqIA undertaken for the…
Read More MBM submission on Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
The Scottish Parliament Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice (EHRCJ) Committee is currently inviting written submissions on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The deadline is Monday 16 May and evidence must be submitted via the Scottish Parliament’s online platform.…
Read More How to submit evidence on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
About us Established in late 2018, MurrayBlackburnMackenzie has undertaken extensive analysis of the adoption of gender self-identification principles in law and public policy in Scotland and across the UK. We have provided oral and written evidence to the UK and…
When is the next census in Scotland? The next census will take place in March 2022. In the rest of the UK, the census took place in March this year. Will the census ask for respondents’ sex? Yes, the sex…
Read More Q&A on the sex question guidance for the 2022 Scottish census
