Crossing the ‘gender-bread’ border: what Scotland’s gender bill means for England

‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ said Robert Burns. Well, perhaps not for much longer. The Scottish Parliament has recently voted in favour of legislation to allow lads to become lassies, and vice versa, merely by declaration. No medical intervention or diagnosis of gender dysphoria required. Under the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which enters its committee stage this week, Scots will be able to change their legal sex at ages 16 and 17 after six months of living in their new gender, and after three months if aged over 18.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has enthusiastically embraced the claim made by her coalition partners, the Scottish Greens, that ‘transwomen are women’. Her government argued precisely this in court last week in a judicial review brought by the gender critical group For Women Scotland against the counting of transwomen as women on public boards. 

The Scottish Government says that once people have changed their legal sex, with a gender recognition certificate, human biology becomes irrelevant. Rishi Sunak is equally adamant that it does not.