Alister Jack was entirely right to make a ‘Section 35’ order to block Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill from proceeding to Royal Assent. As Secretary of State for Scotland, Jack invited the Scottish Government to bring an amended Bill back for reconsideration at Holyrood. He added, “I hope we can work together to find a constructive way forward that both respects devolution and the operation of UK Parliament legislation.”
The SNP will no doubt be outraged, but Sturgeon’s Bill would have impacted on reserved matters — including the UK-wide Equality Act and the administration of UK passports. From a purely legal aspect, that makes the bill ultra vires. It is on those grounds alone that Jack will have acted. Should the Scottish Government choose to waste taxpayers’ money on another judicial review there will be further discussion in the courts, but this is a debate in which the legal arguments are eclipsed by emotion and politics.
The debate in Scotland was high on emotion. Trans people, we were told, are subjected to a demeaning and humiliating process just to be ourselves. That is nonsense, and suggests to me that those making those arguments do not understand the purpose of a Gender Recognition Certificate.
A GRC is not some sort of transgender licence, nor a certificate to prove that someone is transgender. I have no GRC, and I have no intention of getting one: I have no need to falsify a historical document of my birth in order to live in the present. What matters in real life are relationships — how we see ourselves and how other people see us — not government-issued paperwork.
Rather, a GRC serves a single purpose: to change the sex recorded on that birth certificate. Since I cannot remember the last time anyone asked me to produce that piece of paper, it really has no impact on my life. But it would matter very much if I were ever asked to prove my sex. My birth certificate would confirm straight away that I am male.
However, if I were to acquire a GRC then all my documents would indicate that I am female. Service providers would have no way of proving otherwise, unless I came clean. So, while the Equality Act might allow them to offer single-sex services, they have no way of distinguishing — on paper at least — between women and transwomen with a GRC.
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