It’s been a shit year for trans people and LGBTQ folks more generally, with a massive and violent backlash that has targeted everyone from drag queens to providers of trans healthcare; meanwhile, laws in numerous states have begun to chip away at fundamental trans rights.
But there’s good news today. In Scotland and Spain, landmark legislation has been passed to make it considerably easier for trans people to officially identify as the gender they really are.
In Scotland, the Gender Recognition Reform bill passed the Scottish Parliament by a wide margin today. The government of Nicola Sturgeon has been pushing the legislation for some time. It makes it much easier to change the sex on one’s birth certificate.
Under existing law, making such a change involved a byzantine process, as Pink News notes.
At present, trans people in the UK must apply to a gender recognition panel and present a diagnosis of gender dysphoria – a laborious process that can take years due to the incredibly long wait times at NHS gender clinics. People can only apply to be legally recognised as male or female – non-binary genders are not legally recognised in the UK.
Applicants must provide two medical reports, and at least one needs to include details of any gender-affirming treatments or healthcare the individual plans to have. It also needs to confirm a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The individual must also prove they’ve lived in their “acquired” gender for at least two years, and they must swear they intend to do so for the rest of their lives.
Now the process has been drastically simplified. The requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria has been eliminated, and the length of time one must have lived as one’s acquired gender has been reduced to three months (six for younger people aged 16 and 17). The applicant still must swear to live the rest of their life in their acquired gender. There’s also a waiting period of three months.
Unfortunately, the Tory UK government may try to block the bill. However, a representative of the Scottish government responded to the threat by saying that “any attempt by the UK Government to undermine the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament will be vigorously contested.”
In Spain, meanwhile, the lower house of parliament easily passed a similar bill making it easier to change one’s official gender identity. The Spanish legislation makes it possible for anyone 16 or older to make a change in their gender identity by request, without getting a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a doctor or living in their “acquired” gender” for some period of time; currently the process for doing this is as convoluted as it is in Scotland. As in the new Scottish bill, there is a three-month waiting period. The bill also bans conversion therapy and protects LGBTQ people in the workplace.
The bill is expected to pass the Spanish senate within weeks and then become law.
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@David Futrelle:
This frontispiece is a pleasant and non-caricatured one; I presume you did it yourself?
That’s great!! I’d read a bit about the Scottish legislation… wouldn’t have if it weren’t for this blog, since it was through an article linked here (unfortunately, the context was Rowling’s transphobic BS).
I’m curious, would this make it legal as well to register a non-binary gender status on official documents, or does that still have to be male or female in the UK as a whole? I wasn’t clear about that part.
The UK’s honorary white PM is seeking to block this, because of course he is.
As Marx said, [… historic… personages]… appear, so to speak, twice… the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” – but I think we’d need to add “ugly” twice, before “tragedy “ and before “farce,” Thatcher being an ugly tragedy (Elvis C wrote a fine, bitter song about that) and Sunak already proving to be just as ugly a farce.
What a disgusting world “conservatives” demand all of us live in!
Sunak’s control over his parliamentary party is very thin and this lets him do two things his base likes – attack trans people and stick it to Scotland.
Good thing he now has a fellow banker to advise him on ethics.
I didn’t know Scotland had its own Parliament. Off to Google…
That’s great news! Especially the one in Spain is really great. Though the restrictions in the UK are ass. I really hope this will be a stepping stone to further improve conditions for all of us. Frick all transphobes.
The Jan. 6 House report is out! I haven’t read it yet.
♫ It’s the most wonderful time of the year! ♫
Wouldn’t it be wild if the battle for trans rights led to Scotland and Wales leaving their union and the reunification of Ireland?
(It is too bad they still don’t allow nonbinary, though.)
In one of the Rivers of London books by Ben Aaronovitch, a wizard of Victorian vintage (but somewhat changed by the history he’s witnessed) is appalled to learn of gender recognition boards—a gentleman takes someone else’s word for things like that.
The Olympic Committee will take the word of royalty.
(Princess Anne was exempt from sex testing at the 76 Olympics)
https://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/gender-testing.htm
@Gerald Fnord: I LOVE those books. Bought the first 2 on a whim when the 2nd had just come out and now snap them all up.
@Seth S: It would be great for everyone, I think. Particularly NI. Much more representative for all. Then everyone but England can get back in the EU.
Yay !!!