Letters: Scotland’s gender law doesn’t add up

Scottish muddle

Sir: The Scottish Sentencing Council guidelines, introduced last year, affirm research as showing that young people, defined in the guidelines as those up to 25 years of age, ‘are not fully developed and may not have attained full maturity’ (‘Gender wars’, 21 January). As a result they are seen as less able to exercise good judgment; are more vulnerable to external influences; may be less able to assess the implications of their decisions; and may take more risks. However, Scottish people nine years younger than that, faced with the complex experience of perceiving their bodily habitus to be at odds with their sense of their gender, are judged fully ready to make permanent, legally binding, life-altering decisions independent of any external advice or assessment. It seems that maturity in Scotland is less a matter of objective reality and more one of political expediency.

Dr M. Jamieson

Glasgow