Reform ‘under the radar’? Lessons for Scotland from the Development of Gender Self-Declaration Laws in Europe will be published in the forthcoming edition of Edinburgh Law Review vol. 24 (2): pp 281-289. May 2020 An advance copy is available here:…
MBM submission to Women and Equalities Committee inquiry on the impact of Covid-19 on protected groups
Submitted to the UK Parliament Women and Equalities Committee's inquiry on the impact of Covid-19 on those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 The Covid-19 pandemic is impacting on different protected groups in different ways. It appears that…
Shifting sands on the definition of ‘woman’ in Scots law: the journey of the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act from consultation to implementation
That women remain under-represented in public life is largely uncontested. Campaigns to improve the representation of women enjoy support across the political spectrum, even if there are differences in opinion on how that might be achieved. In early 2018, the…
MBM statement on the suspension of GRA reform
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…
GRA Reform: Meeting with Scottish Government officials 9 March 2020
On what now seems like a lifetime ago, 9 March, we met officials from the Scottish Government to discuss the consultation on the draft Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Our meeting was with a senior official responsible for this area and…
Our response to the Scottish GRA reform consultation
We have submitted our response to the Scottish Government's consultation on on GRA reform. Our full consultation response is here, and the key points are summarised below. IntroductionSome people who wish to change their legal sex report that the current application…
We need more clarity on gender rights debate from Scottish Government
This article originally appeared in The Scotsman on 1 January 2020. The link to the article has since been removed following a redesign of The Scotsman website. The Government must spell out the effect of gender recognition certificates on access…
From medical assessment to affirmation: legal gender self-declaration in Ireland
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…
A tale of two letters: whose views count?
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…
Scottish Government response to our questions on reforming the Gender Recognition Act
On 6 January 2020 we wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People Shirley-Anne Somerville, with a set of questions about the Scottish Government consultation on gender recognition reform and draft Bill (our original letter is shown…
