 Slyw fawr i'r 16 ymlaen i gaelio y dyfodol y Prifysgol, Hynryd i Gwladau Cyngor, ac ymddangos cymaint. Felly, nid oeddwn i'n fwyaf. Felly, rydw i'n rhaid i'r cymaint, Rachael Hamilton, gan gaeli Alexander Stewart i'r cysylltu'r Gwladau Pwysigol. Felly, rydw i'n fawr i'n gaelio ymlaen i gaeli Alexander Stewart i'r cysylltu i'r cysylltu ac yn sefyllfa iawn, yn ganfawr ddechrau notification y ddefnyddio gwahanol, ac mae'n dweud safbeth arakol. Rhyw g Eitem yn iag Gratial Hamilton ydw i'r ddefnyddio gwahanol yw'rciaun i'r aeutio.OME yn ymglu i'r eitem yn gweithio ein oedd yn fawr ar fynd i Gender Reformation evidence on the gender recognition reform Scotland bill. I welcome to the meeting our first panel, Lucy Hunter Blackburn of Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, Susan Smith, co-director of Four Women Scotland, Dr Kate Coleman, director of Keep Prisons single sex and Malcolm Clark, head of research of lgb alliance. I refer members to papers one and two. Can I invite Lucy Hunter Blackburn to make a short opening statement and we'll then hear from the other members? Thank you, convener, and thank you for having me here. Good morning. In the High Court of Northern Ireland last year, Mr Justice Schofield described a gender recognition certificate as conferring, and I quote, a significant and formal change in a person's status with potentially far-reaching consequences for them and for others, including the state. Those far-reaching consequences flow mainly from two sections of the act, not mentioned by name in the commission's sessions so far. Section 9 sets out the effect of a GRC. It provides that a person's acquired gender becomes for all purposes in law, except in a few defined circumstances, their sex. Section 22 puts in place stringent privacy protections. It creates criminal offences for disclosing any information about a person's past identity or current status as a GRC holder. If that knowledge was gained in an official capacity, again, with limited exceptions. A key question for the committee is how these two sections interact with the Equality Act. We and others sent in a joint briefing to you about this, following comments made in the first public session. We highlighted that the legal position here is unsettled, and that several influential organisations believe that a GRC does change somebody's sex under the Equality Act, with implications for how organisations can practically provide single sex services in line with the law. I'll mention one example from our briefing. In 2017, a Scottish Government email recorded a member of the equality network staff telling civil servants that the use of sex and gender interchangeably in section 9 was quote intentional and should be retained. The wording's purpose was to make sure that GRC holders would not be prevented from accessing services based on their acquired gender. In a further internal note, a civil servant then recorded that the Government was keeping this wording in section 9 for policy reasons. It's clear therefore that, in developing this bill, both the Scottish Government and the Equality Network have viewed GRCs as much more than just a piece of paper. That was in 2017. Much more recently, the Scottish Government has again demonstrated its belief that a GRC changes someone's sex for the purpose of the Equality Act, and Susan will say more about that. In public, Government and its supporters may maintain that GRA reform, as proposed here, will not affect the operation of the Equality Act, but the committee needs to dig much deeper into that. We are, of course, at a disadvantage here, because some minutes of the committee's private briefing with civil servants in March do not record what they said to you about this, but think of it this way. If a GRC is a sort of key and you're going to hand out lots more copies to a more diverse group, the first job of legislators is to be really clear about what that key could unlock. Meanwhile, there's no dispute that all GRC holders and also in future all those who claim they've already obtained gender recognition overseas will benefit from section 22. The committee therefore needs to consider what it means to extend such strong protection to a much larger, more diverse group, including young people still in school, based purely on self-declaration. Three years ago, the Scottish Government said it would tighten section 22, but instead the bill extends its reach. Our written evidence to you discusses these points and others, including cross-border effects, the far-reaching provisions for overseas gender recognition and, very importantly, how the Government has handled its assessment of potential impacts on women. Coming back to Mr Justice Schofield, he said that a GRC is a, quote, major change in the status of the individual in the eyes of the law. Understanding fully the nature of that change and anything about it that's uncertain should be the committee's starting point. Convener, speaking from 20 years in policy making, most of that in what's now the Scottish Government and years since researching public policy, I'm serious when I say that the process leading to the introduction of this bill has been exceptionally poor and a recipe for bad law, and I hope that the committee will now correct rather than repeat these mistakes. Thank you. Thank you, Lizzie, and can I hear from Susan Smith, please? Thank you, convener, committee. Despite a legal fiction enacted 18 years ago, outward science fiction, people cannot change biological sex. The Scottish Government claimed to understand the difference between sex and gender, but have used legislation and policy to erase sex or conflate it with gender. For Women's Scotland, recently won a case in the highest court in Scotland over the definition of women in the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act. In the ruling, the judges said that provisions in favour of women by definition exclude those who are biologically male. They determined the definition in the statutory guidance based on self-id should be struck out. However, the Scottish Government's proposed correction is to define women on the basis of section 212 of the Equality Act plus those in possession of a GRC who have changed their legal sex to female. In short, while ministers and civil servants may swear blind to this committee that a GRC does not change a person's sex under the Equality Act, this act suggests they don't really believe it. The GRC, as Lucy said, conflates sex and gender. Meanwhile, confusion and coordinated campaigns have undermined how single sex spaces operate, and this is reflected in the submissions you've received in policy documents and in workplace guidance. We think many have the law hopelessly tangled, but while the Scottish Government are not prepared to defend women's rights, reform will make things immeasurably worse. Another bad law will, like others before, end in the courts. By doing away with all eligibility criteria, this bill effectively opens up the process to everyone. There is a frankly naive expectation that no one will act dishonestly, and that solemn declarations are the most binding of magic. While much has been made of the vulnerability of trans-identified people, there has been little recognition that the people who will suffer under the loss of single sex spaces, which providers will find increasingly difficult to operate, are genuinely some of the most marginalised and abused in Scotland today. While the committee took private evidence from selected individuals, some of which related to experience rather than the application of law, I recently listened to heart-rending accounts of women who have self-excluded from women's services and the evidence of how trauma has ripped their lives apart. These women have then been demonised, sometimes by the very organisations who are supposed to protect them and betrayed by those who should have supported them. If lived experience matters to the committee, theirs should too. Frontline workers and board members have told us that the women at the top of the funded organisations did not consult independent centres before declaring for self-id. Many try to maintain a de facto single sex policy in spite of this. We are concerned that the committee set the schedule for witnesses before studying the evidence and that there has been gaps in previous panels. For example, no mention of the CAS review or de-transition on the panel on young people. I am sure the committee will reference international best practice and we would like to understand what you think this means. We know that previous witnesses referred to the Juggia Carter principles, a document that signally fails to consider women, in submissions. Human rights lawyer Professor Robert Wintermute was a co-signatory to these principles and has written to this committee offering to give evidence but has not been called. If you really wish to understand, this seems a shocking omission. There has been much talk of misinformation and abuse. We would agree that it does not come from the people sitting in front of you now. Sadly, some misdirection has come from Government-funded organisations who enjoy privileged access to ministers. Abuse of our organisations has come from people working in Parliament, from members of cross-party groups and was even published last week on the Scottish Parliament website. Disgracefully, one of the organisations on the next panel put out a hugely inappropriate comment about this session in their newsletter last week. Meanwhile, ordinary women, shut out from the process, have to protest outside Parliament in order to be noticed. This committee has much work to do and biased or partial evidence collection will not make a free bra situation better. Women still suffer disproportionately from domestic violence. We are overlooked in medical trials. Our health conditions taken less seriously. We are paid less and take on more caring responsibility. Our sex is a factor in this, not our clothing preference or our pronouns. By erasing and confusing sex in law and policy, the Scottish Government will not resolve any of these equalities, but they will make it considerably harder to monitor injustice and to fight for change. I move on to Dr Kate Coleman, please. Thank you, convener. Thank you, committee. Kate Prison's single sex campaigns for the sex-based rights of women in prison to single sex accommodation and same sex searching. We also campaigned for data throughout the criminal justice system to be collected by sex registered at birth. We work closely with current and former female offenders throughout the UK and this informs our work. We are opposed to this bill and have concerns regarding many of its proposals. My focus today is the likely impact of the bill on women in prison and on data collection. This bill makes both substantive changes to the operation of the Gender Recognition Act, the intended function that a GRC should serve and the criteria which applicants must fulfil. The impact will be seen across the UK beyond the borders of Scotland. That is not merely a matter of administration. Earlier this year, Lady Dorian observed that the protected characteristics in the Equality Act operate in parallel and that the protected characteristic gender reassignment as a single category with no subdivision according to sex or to acquired gender is distinct from the protected characteristic of sex. She also affirmed the importance of separate legal protection for biological women under the Equality Act. However, the direction of movement for prisons policy is to treat a transgender prisoner with a GRC differently to a transgender prisoner without, that is to say, as a prisoner of the sex corresponding to their acquired gender. This is certainly the position of the MOJ. The Scottish Prison Service gender identity and gender reassignment policy is currently under review and may well be revised to also give priority status, as it were, to GRC holders. Policy decisions that refuse to allocate and manage GRC holders on the basis of their acquired gender may be subject to challenge including in the courts. Certainly, we have seen that south of the border in the English courts. A system of self-id removes any variable differating trans women with a GRC from males aside from having completed a legal process. This is particularly relevant for prison allocation and management. We work with partner organisations across a number of jurisdictions including Ireland, the USA and Canada. Wherever allocation is on the basis of self-id it is frankly disastrous for women in prison. When prison services privilege GRC status, the possibility of case-by-case flexibility in the management of decisions that can be made for prisoners is dramatically reduced. Here, I note that the gender recognition panel already conducts no risk assessment when considering an application nor is there any requirement for medical treatment or surgical reassignment. This past weekend's media reports of the management of a prisoner with intact male genitalia who is able to have sex with a female prisoner at HMP Bronzefield in the female estate is one such example. Sex registered at birth is fundamental to understanding offending and to service provision within the criminal justice system. The importance of sex registered at birth as an explanatory variable and the difference in rates of offending for males and females means that the allocation of even one or two cases of male offending to the female subgroup on the basis of the suspects acquired gender can have a significant impact on the data. Here, I note that there is no evidence at all that the rate of offending for trans women conforms to the rate of offending for females. Rather, the evidence indicates that the male rates of offending persist. This bill will have a substantive cross-border effect on policy and practice and there are urgent questions to be asked about the status of confirmatory GRCs throughout the UK and the limits of automatic recognition of overseas GRCs. Consideration must also be given to the legal implications of creating what will be a two-tier system in prisons in England and Wales. Prisoners who are Scottish-born and who are housed in the prison estate in England and Wales will be able to obtain a GRC with relative ease by meeting a set of criteria set at a considerably reduced threshold compared to those born in other regions of the UK. The latter will have to complete a more lengthy, involved and arduous process in order to obtain a GRC and to be managed as a prisoner of the sex corresponding to their acquired gender. This arguably changes the operation of the Ministry of Justice prisons policy, introducing differential treatment on the basis of place of birth. The possibility of legal challenges by non-Scottish-born prisoners must be considered. We do not agree that in respect of data collection or service provision, sex registered at birth should be overwritten by legal gender, gender reassignment or by self-declared gender identity. Those are questions of fundamental and far-reaching importance. We cannot shy away from them and using the language required to make clear the enduring importance of sex in these areas for fear of accusations of transphobia. I welcome the opportunity to answer questions and to discuss them further. Many people are surprised when they hear that a group that represents lesbians, gays and bisexuals is opposed to the legislation. That is because they have been told that laws that enshrine gender identity are just the latest front line in the battle for gay rights. The tragedy is that nothing could be further from the truth. This bill sends the message that the biological sex we are matters less than the gender identity that we feel. But lesbians and gays are defined by and legally protected as people who are same sex attracted. If you replace the fixed, definable reality of sex with the indefinable, fluid, vague concept of gender identity, the rights that we fought for decades for are erased. If sex does not matter, gays do not matter. This is not a philosophical debate. Leading trans activists already argue that the whole idea of homosexuality no longer makes any sense in a world that believes in a gender spectrum. We are here because we beg to differ. The practical everyday effect of this erasure of biology is to tell gay men that they are attracted to people with female bodies as well as male bodies. On lesbian dating sites, women who insist that they do not want to be contacted by trans women, i.e. people with male bodies, are ejected from the site. It has been estimated that 40 per cent of people on some lesbian dating sites are males who say that they are women. The bill amplifies the pressure, bullying and homophobic denial of the reality of gay people's lives. It is bad enough for adult lesbians and gays. Imagine what it is like for a teenager coming to terms with their sexuality. Imagine what it is like to be told as a young lesbian that you are equally attracted to women with male bodies as female bodies or a gay boy being told that some gay men have vaginas and he will be attracted equally to female bodies as male bodies. That is what is being taught in Scottish schools. No wonder there are soaring numbers of children who are so confused and troubled that they are being referred to gender identity clinics with gender dysphoria. A 4,400 per cent increase in 10 years, among girls in particular. The sad thing is that we know that the majority of kids with dysphoria eventually grow out of it. We also know that the vast majority of people left alone will grow up to be happy young lesbians, gays or bisexuals. That is why we have a particular concern about lowering the age at which someone can get a GRC to 16. If the state steps in to validate the confused feelings of a 16-year-old girl who thinks that she is a boy, this risks crystallising an identity that is temporary. It also makes it harder for her to revert to feeling like a girl now that she is being told by the state that she really is a boy. More than 50 females under 18 were approved for double mastectomies in Scotland in the last decade. If you give girls aged 16 certificates saying that they are boys, how many more teenage mastectomies will be approved? The lowering of age, combined with the removal of any medical oversight, means that we will now be taking away the chance for young people to be questioned by doctors about their decision and to have their gender dysphoria explored. Gender identity was a concept popularised by the discredited psychologist John Money in the late 1950s. He provided no proof and, as of yet, despite over five decades of research, no convincing scientific evidence has been produced to support this idea. Self-ID, in this bill, is the ultimate validation and normalisation of the notion of gender identity. Yet it was only seven years ago that Stonewall and other LGBTQ plus organisations began to press for this change and for self-ID. That is surely an unseemly rush to legislate, not least since it overturns the common sense of millennia that there are two sexes, male and female, something that is hardwired into human beings as our shared simplest understanding of our human nature. What is worse is that this bill is not the end of the gender identity lobby's campaign. It will need more issues to raise funds for in the future, more demands to make a fuss about in order to justify their existence. So, I would just say to the committee, beware. The insertion of self-identification into our laws is just the beginning. It will then be used to trigger a whole new series of ever stranger demands that will chip away at gay rights, the interests of women, children's mental health and the public's tolerance. Yet here we are, preparing to enshrine this contested, controversial, unproven notion into the laws of Scotland, the land of the Enlightenment. Thank you. Thank you, Malcolm. So, we'll now move to questions starting with Maggie Chapman, please. Thanks very much, Joe. Good morning to the panel, and thank you for joining us this morning, and thank you, too, for your opening statements and the evidence that you've submitted in advance. I'm interested in exploring a couple of different areas, but the first one I want to pick up on is that of gender dysphoria, and the removal that this bill suggests, the removal of a requirement for the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. There's discussion around the distinction between whether gender dysphoria is a mental illness or not. The WHO and the UN are quite clear that it is not a mental illness. I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit about what your views are around the lack of evidence in your view required around gender dysphoria. I'll start with Lucy, if I may. One of the things that took a step back that we asked civil servants when we met them was what kind of option analysis there had been of alternatives to taking out the diagnosis of gender dysphoria when they were looking at the bill. One of the things that we were surprised to learn was that they hadn't looked at any other alternatives that retained any form of medical gatekeeping. They had gone straight to just the self-id model, and that bothered me, as a former civil servant, that there had been, over all this period, no kind of option appraisal of different ways. Medical gatekeeping is something that has various things, but one of the things to talk about is the relationship between the two tracks. Mark had made the point between the medical world and the legal world. The idea that those are two quite separate things. When you go back to the original Gender Recognition Act, Justice Schofield said, he said, that the requirement for a diagnosis and more especially the requirement for a medical member of the panel demonstrates to the Parliament in 2004 considered it proper to have some read across between the two processes in the way of professional clinical involvement in each. I was looking at the interesting stuff that we can send to the committee from Denmark to pick up on Markham's point about what happens when you start to decouple those two things. Dietz, in 2018, writing very much from a perspective of someone who supports self-declaration, I should say, argues that, in Denmark, there has been a problem, that they feel that it hasn't worked well because of the decoupling. In fact, what's happening, as you're seeing in Denmark now, is a desire to make access to the medical treatment pathways self-declared to. Obviously, as you'll know at the moment, the access to the NHS depends on a diagnosis, so this decoupling of law and diagnosis, I think Markham's exactly right, the committee needs to watch the idea that you can do one, you have two parallel systems that work together and Denmark is really interesting and will send you the material. For our point of view, the medical gatekeeping does, it connects in there, it avoids this dislocation and it creates an oversight. A lot of the problems that people are raising with self-declaration are if you have some medical oversight, as you still have for passports of course, then you have an external third party and that brings in something which actually deals with an awful lot of the concerns that people have about self-declaration up past to others. Before I bring you in, Susan, you spoke in your opening remarks around the eligibility criteria more broadly, not only just associated with gender dysforia. I wonder if you could say a little bit more about what you consider to be legitimate criteria and not, and why? To an extent, that's not really for us to say, I think, we're not here to determine what the eligibility criteria should be, we're just here to say that you shouldn't remove it in its entirety, which is what this bill effectively does. I would go back to this idea that you picked up on the WHO. It's interesting that that has slightly decoupled, the WHO has slightly decoupled from the American Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders who do still link gender dysforia as a mental health condition, and usually those two groups work together, so there has been, there is, there is attention within that, but going back to the WHO, ICD-11 moved the, the gender and congruence from the Heading Mental Behavioral Disorders, but they do keep it as a condition, in this case a condition related to sexual health. One thing that the authors have a paper who sat on the working group of stressed is that a diagnosis of gender and congruence must be retained to preserve access to health services for those who need them, so that going back to this idea of this potential decoupling of medical services, it's very important that even the people who are taking it out on the WHO really think that those diagnosis are important. This was also borne out in a case heard in the European Court of Human Rights recently, which decided a requirement for a diagnosis was aimed at safeguarding the interests of the person applying a gender change to ensure that they do not embark unadvisedly on the process of legally changing their identity and applied the proportionality test to ensure that rights granted to a particular group do not interfere with the rights of wider society. You talked about that shift from mental disorder to sexual health condition, is the language DSM use. Why then would we have a psychiatric assessment? Susan, I'm asking you to answer this. Why then would it be problematic to remove the psychiatric assessment element? Because they are saying that you need to maintain that diagnosis. Even the people who have moved it have said that you needed to maintain a diagnosis in... Sexual health is different to mental disorder. Sorry, I'd like Susan to answer this, given that she raised it in her evidence. My letter to the committee just points out that the act doesn't describe gender dysforia as a psychiatric diagnosis. That's all the point I wanted to make. Nothing in the G.R.A ties it as drafted to being a psychiatrist. There is an issue about a definition in section 25 of disorder, which Justice Schofield criticised, but I want to make that point because there isn't anything in the face of... I haven't been here to talk about the act, obviously. There's nothing on the face of the act that requires it to be regarded or conceptualised as a psychiatric diagnosis. That's the only reason I wanted to intervene. That's the crucial point. The diagnosis, it doesn't matter what heading you put the diagnosis under. The diagnosis has to remain. Kate, if I can come to you, you mentioned in your opening statements that the requirement of gender dysforia to remain. Can you just say, is your view aligned with what Lucy and Susan have just said? I'm going to defer to Lucy and to Susan on their knowledge of how things currently operate. I would say that the policy question of the appropriate management of cohorts of prisoners who have a diagnosis of gender dysforia or who have gender dysforia but who have not obtained a formal diagnosis and the particular vulnerabilities that they may be experiencing in the prisoner's state, that is an urgent question, but it's an entirely separate policy question as to which cohorts of prisoners have a legitimate entitlement to be housed in the female prisoner state and to be managed in accordance with the risk assessment processes, searching protocols, et cetera, that are in place for female prisoners. I agree that there is an urgent issue regarding the vulnerability of prisoners, which, as we know, unfortunately extends beyond those cohorts, but I'm focusing on the legitimate entitlement and the impact on the female prisoner state. I could give just one example. There was a prisoner, someone who's now a prisoner in Ireland, who was refused a diagnosis of gender dysforia at a clinic in England and so was unable to pursue a GRC through that route but, who then, on the basis of self-id, was able to obtain a GRC in Ireland and the impact of the management of that prisoner within the female state has been catastrophic for women in prison. Okay, thanks Kate. Malcolm, if I can come to you, you also mentioned gender dysforia and the need to retain that in your opening remarks. Yes, as I understand it, the 2004 act had the gender dysforia diagnosis and various barriers to giving a GRC in order to protect the public. It was an assurance, it was sold to the public then as an assurance that not just anybody could get a GRC. Now, I agree with my colleagues here, but I would also say to a Parliament that's considering giving GRCs to 16- to 18-year-olds, I would have thought that some sort of medical, psychological barrier would be helpful to a 16-year-old if nothing else. Nobody I've ever heard has said that the medical diagnoses that were provided up to now in the GRC were really traumatic and dreadful and intrusive. As far as I can understand they asked simple questions and I would have thought at the very least something has to be retained for 16- to 18-year-olds if nothing else that asks them are they sure and explores why they feel the way they do and that if gender dysforia is an issue, it should be explored in a therapeutic and caring way. Can I just clarify you saying that in your view you don't consider that the process as it currently stands is demeaning and intrusive? From the people I've spoken to, and I know many trans supporters of LGBT Alliance, both transsexuals and transgender, they frankly go for the nonsense that has been described as demeaning. I mean, nobody ever puts any flesh on this term demeaning. I mean, what is it a couple of questions? You're about to change one of the most fundamental legal definitions of an individual in society and we're not allowed to ask a couple of questions. Okay, final point if I may joke. It's actually linking something you've just said, Malcolm, to Lucy, something you said in your opening statement. Malcolm, you said the proposals under the gender recognition reform Scotland bill would mean that anybody could get a GRC. That's what you've just said. Lucy, in your opening remarks you talked about opening this up to a more diverse group, but why do group? What do you mean by why do group? Thank you, that's a very important question and one of the issues here to us is very much the larger, more diverse groups. At the moment, the threshold for getting a GRC, so it's presented very much as we're just changing the admin for a set group, but when you look back at 2004, the group that's legislated for was deliberately expected it to be the 5,000 or so people that it is, and it was very deliberately pegged around people. Justice Scotia, as I said, went through its very interesting judgment, went through the background of 2004 act and how it was very much intended for this very tightly defined group and EHRCs made the same point. Once you drop the threshold, one of the problems about removing any kind of medical oversight however you construct it is that you open up to anyone who is willing to make the declaration. This is a problem that your threshold, your safety threshold there, you're not your safety threshold actually, but because some people may be entirely genuine, so it's not just about saying it's abusive, literally you're writing a piece of law because the law is what's on the page, it's not what's in anyone's head at the time, all that's required. So what is it that you mean when you talk about the wider group? The wider group is the wider group of people who are not dysforic, who would at the moment not be able to acquire a GRC because they would not be able to get a diagnosis. I think it's a very helpful question to have at this point because the 2004 act has been really repurposed here to do a different job. It's originally designed very clearly when you read the Hansard's, it's very, very clearly designed for this very small targeted group of people who are long from, envisaged as being long-time transitions, having made quite major changes, needing extremely acute privacy protections, but what you're hearing, and I've read the evidence to the committee and listened with great interest, and what you see being laid out in front of you is a really different conceptualisation of the population of interest to politicians here. As a much broader group of people, in some of you you've got written evidence, people saying that they don't think you should have the acquired gender period because you might not be able to live in your acquired gender. People wanted to say that they should be able to apply for a GRC regardless of whether they've made changes, and that was that Hansard's advice briefing, but some of you have written evidence, people make the same points, I think Ellie made some of the same points that the population that's talked about, the trans umbrella now, is radically different in its composition, it's bigger, it's more diverse, and that's where we are. Maggie, one of the problems that I've always found when debating this in Scotland is that there is a giant loophole created by the law. I call it, if you like, the Alex Drummond problem, you may know that Alex Drummond is a six foot two Welsh lesbian with a beard, looks like a man, but his approach, he says, is that he's queering the idea of gender by the fact that he knows he looks like a guy and he's got a big beard. I always say, well, once you have opened to a wider population and the public know that you've opened the GRC to a wider population, it may include six foot two blokes, people who look like blokes with a big beard, then how is the public supposed to know when a six foot two person with a beard, who looks like a guy, walks into a girl's changing room, how are they supposed to know whether this person has a GRC, is trans identified or not, and there's a huge loophole here that it would be great if, finally, after the four years of this bill being talked about, that politicians would finally consider how they could close that loophole. I'll leave it there. Do you need to watch sign? There's a couple of wanting in for a quick sup, so try and keep this tight because we need to get around the rest of the questions. But Rachel Hamilton, next. I'm a writing saying, Lucy, that you had said that no other alternatives to self-decoration had been explored. That's correct, that's what civil servants told us. Can you comment on what you believe would be something that could be an alternative? Do you have a point of view on that, other than your opinion possibly that the removal of the requirement to provide medical evidence is your sort of black and white position? What is difficult looking at this as a policy process is, I would have looked at the complaints about the process, it's perfectly normal, I think it's a point of better record, if you've had a piece of legislation in place since 2004, of course it's completely normal to come back to it and look at how it's functioning and talk to groups using it, but that's not what happened. I would look at the issues and I would start picking them off one by one, and one of the things we did when we first started looking at this was people complaining about the fee, so we pointed out, and we were the first people that we saw doing it, we pointed out, well, there's regulatory powers to drop the fee, which the Government at Westminster then did. There are things you can do to reduce the amount of medical evidence, so one of the things I do think, probably I maybe disagree a bit with Malcolm here, is that section 33 of the GR which requires people, even if you haven't had any medical treatment, which are not required to do under the act, you are required to put in very detailed medical evidence about what treatment you've had or what you might have, and that looks very difficult to justify, and I can see why people might find that intrusive. So there are things that you could do to streamline the act and make it, you could answer some of the concerns people have I think without jumping, what the Government did is it jumped to a solution, it started with an answer and worked back from it, it didn't start with the problem and worked to a solution, so I think the kind of options you can look at, I mean passports for example, still require a doctor's letter, so we've actually watched one of the curious things about this, it's the law that jumps past the passport system, and no-one ever discusses that, yet everyone's happy with the passport system, which involves medical oversight. So there's a lot of territory which has gone unexplored because the Government just started and jumped, and all this middle ground that you might look at, how you might reform or simplify a process, is missing. The convener, it was just a comment because... Well, I think I'm going to have to stop that, but it would be time to come back in if we can go to Pamdank and Glancy for us to cross up to you. Thank you, convener, and thank you, panel, for your contribution so far. It was just a small supplementary on something that was said earlier around the decoupling of law and diagnosis in medical treatment, and in particular I think Lucy, it was you who said that in Norway, was it Norway or Denmark, sorry? In Denmark there had been a situation where people were moving to self-declaration for medical treatment. Can you explain what the system of medical care in that country is in comparison to here, because I can't imagine a situation where you could approach a medical professional here and just ask them to do something and they would just do it? So what's happening? It's not so much what's happening on the ground, but where the discussion is going, where the politics is going. No, exactly. So it's what you can see happening. It's a really interesting piece. I'll send it to the committee about where the description is. It's a decoupling of the embodied and the mind is basically what they say. The law has done the head, but the medical system is still asking for a diagnosis for the body, and the complaint is that that's now out of sync. So where the law is going, there's a pressure for the medical system to lead. I would quickly say Dr Richard Bing, I think it was put in evidence which I think we've cited in ours to previous committee hearings on a different topic. There are GPs and medical practitioners that we'd really would urge you to speak to as part of your inquiry, who are worried very much about this leaking, this reverse almost pressure that you would create, particularly for young people, that people will turn up and say, I've got this piece of paper. I think I'm sorry. Can I just come in there? Because I think that was something that some, as Lucy said, some of the medics, and in fact, Greater Glasgow and Clyde healthful pointed this out that they were worried about if you were giving people a piece of paper that said legally the other sex, that that would increase pressure on services. And of course the last thing anybody would want to do is increase the pressure on the NHS services. And I know that there are some of the medics who'd worked at the Tavistock and so on have a lot of concerns about them. So they would be good people to have to explore this further. So could I just, forgive me, convener, I'm slightly confused because on one hand particularly yourself, Malcolm, seems to be saying that it's important that young people have that medical input and the therapy, but on the other hand you feel a bit concerned about pushing or putting people towards medical intervention. So which is it? I'm just going to say that I think there's a theme which is whether it's the conversion therapy ban which is now being promoted, or here there's a chipping away at the authority of the medical profession. If the conversion therapy ban, I know it's a different bill, but if it was to go through then essentially you would have self-diagnosis. That's the whole point of the conversion therapy ban that any child or any person goes to a doctor and says I am ex, the doctor must affirm. The strange thing is that this bill is erasing gender dysphoria. It's a huge growing mental health crisis in this country and we think resources should be poured into it. There should be more doctors and there should be more psychiatrists and it should be more therapeutic care. This is removing one opportunity to inset that. I think there should be more support. I have to say that, but just on Lucy's point about talking specifically about what's in the bill, which part of the bill erases gender dysphoria? Well, the fact that there's no mental health crisis. It doesn't erase gender dysphoria though, it just takes out the process. Well, it's part, well, I think almost everybody who is in support of this bill, any of the organisations, Stonewall or whatever, want to decouple gender identity and gender dysphoria. That would be one of, they may not say it here, but that's what they say elsewhere and in public. The idea is that gender identity now has nothing to do with gender dysphoria, even although originally the two were linked. In essence, that's what this bill does. It takes away an opportunity for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which would be useful for people, I would have thought. Okay, thanks. I'm going to have to move on to the next question, which is Pam Goswell, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thank you for your opening statements and the evidence that you've submitted. I want to touch on something that you've all mentioned today, single sex basis. Two weeks ago, we heard from the EHRC that individuals who acquire a GRC can access women and girls single sex basis, meaning such places as toilets, changing rooms, refugees, hospital wards and many more. That inclusion of individuals with the GRC would be direct discrimination, subject to justification of course. There are concerns from those opposed to the bill, and obviously we've heard some concerns from yourself today as well. That self-declaration aspect will open up the bill to abuse from bad faith actors. Just on that, I know somebody has mentioned it, and we've got a good example from Malcolm Moon talking about the six foot two person. What kind of concerns do the rest of you have, and could you go into a little bit more detail what this would mean that the concerns of people had to access those single sex basis? Let's go into Susan first. Yeah, it's the key point, and it comes back to what Lucy said about the provisions within the GRA about secrecy and non-disclosure, that it's incredibly difficult to find out, well it's impossible to find out if someone has a GRC, unless they volunteer that information. So what providers are then reliant on is honesty on the part of the person turning up. Slightly going back to this opening out that I know that previous witnesses have talked about how people don't need to have any medical intervention and so on to get a GRC, but they don't want to be outed, which seems slightly self-contradictory. There's a huge elephant in the room there when you're talking about people who are clearly one sex or the other, but have legal documentation that say they're the opposite sex, and then it's impossible for anybody to point this out without risking some kind of legal sanction themselves. So single sex providers can impose blanket bans on services. I think that there has been discussions about case by case, but actually if you go back to the Equality Act itself it says you can, of service, can impose a blanket ban, but what is not being looked at is how they can do that in practice, and one of the things that we've found as we've tracked back through some of the conversations on this, we know that organisations were arguing in 2009 when the Equality Act came in and then later a committee in Westminster in 2015 that single sex exemptions and the genuine occupational requirement were discriminatory and should be taken out of the Equality Act because they wanted everything on the basis of gender identity. They didn't see the need for sex provisions. That obviously didn't happen, and subsequently the argument changed. It's very interesting to see how the argument changed at that period, and it went from saying these exceptions are awful because they're excluding people who have a gender identity that is different to their sex to arguing that these exceptions made no difference in practice, which was an interesting and revealing turnaround. What we now see, for example, in NHS policies in even the Scottish Women's Aid policy, is that arguments that a GRC, for example, changes someone's sex for the purposes of the genuine occupational requirement. Now, we would say that was wrong, but that is out there in policy documents, and so that is why it's really critically important, before you change any of this, to work out exactly where those exceptions can be applied, and what they mean, and how, crucially, if you're an employer and you're recruiting for somebody for a female role, perhaps to provide intimate care, you can go back and make sure that that person really is a woman, because otherwise you are, unfortunately, it is opening up this, and the NHS lady, and actually a couple of years ago said that, because of this, they could not guarantee that people would get female carers because of this conflict between the two acts. Can I just, I've got a supplement on that, Susan, before I come back to Lucy? I want to talk a little bit about religion. You've just mentioned carers here. There's something that deeply concerns me being from the Indian religion, that if, for example, my mother goes to a doctor, and what they see, and I have to work this very, in a very right way, not to offend anybody here, that my mother will ask for a man or a woman, she's old fashioned, she doesn't know anything else, she will ask for a woman doctor. Now, if that person, she didn't ask, and basically she got somebody trans, and she didn't know, that would break a lot of religions, especially the Muslim religion, and even going into single sex spaces, I know many Muslims have voiced with me to ask these questions and Indians to ask, where does that lie, because do we change our religions then? What's your feeling on that, Susan? I think that's a really, really important point, and I think it's very sadly and disgracefully, it's one that has been completely overlooked, because obviously religion is also a protected characteristic. There was an excellent, Shona Dillan, who is the chief executive of a violence against women centre down south, Aroroni Dawn, did a big piece of work with Muslim women and spoke to a lot of them, and there are real fears and real concerns, and we've heard similarly from women in Glasgow who started self-excluding from going to the gym, because the women only sessions they checked, these women went to check if they could guarantee the women's only sessions would be women's only sessions, and they were told that they were on the basis of self-id. Now, people say this is a remote possibility, it probably is, it might not happen, but the fact that it could happen has meant these women have started self-excluding, they've been pushed out of the public sphere, and the saddest thing about all of this, and this is when I come back to saying really what this does is it hurts the most vulnerable women, it hurts women from ethnic minorities, it hurts women who have been victims of abuse, it hurts working class women the most, because they are the women who will suffer when all this is removed, and these Muslim women have said they are frightened of speaking up because they see the abuse that women get anyway, and then that is then compounded by people telling them that their religion is in and of itself a bigoted religion, and I've seen that, I've seen that recently with the very brave author on Jolly Ralph who stands up for refugees and has stood up and said that single sex spaces are important for Muslim women, and the abuse that she has got has been sexist and Islamophobic and racist, and it is truly appalling that this has been allowed under cover of this movement, these really, really horrific abuses have been almost encouraged frankly, and yes, it's a big issue. Thank you, Susan, because it does break your religion, I can tell you that, it breaks your religion completely because you're not allowed to have anybody male sex at all or trans, which isn't actually in any of our scripts to see that can they see you or anything, so I think it's really good that you've covered that, that it's something that people have been asking. Lucy, have you got any views on that? I suppose it's bringing this back to what the legal puzzle is and how you fix this in the bill and what, you know, a way to try to help make good law, I think it's important to say, so the two things are how it changes your sex in law and that gives you rights, so we've sent in a briefing and then the second one is section 22, going back to the discrimination effects on changing your sex, if you have a change of sex in law you can bring direct discrimination cases and that changes things, that changes your ability, it's much easier to bring a direct discrimination case and providers will take that into account, it's one of the things they look at the risk analysis of how they're going to set that policy, what's going to happen, what's the bigger risk that I get this kind of case for someone claiming direct discrimination who is trans but now has a female GRC or I get an indirect discrimination case from some say Muslim women that were being discriminated against or women who have women in general saying that we will not be able to use that space and they will always worry more about the direct discrimination case, so that's the first thing about the GRC if it has this effect under a quality approach, it's important to say it's contested, I mean you're hearing people who disagree with us telling you there's no effect but it's a very messy situation and it's very unsatisfactory that you're being asked to legislate in that context I would say, so that's the first bit of the jigsaw puzzle, the other bit is the Susan Says section 22 which was designed for a very small group of people who are very, it's almost like, I mean people have used the analogy of a witness protection programme and it is like that, we know that there are circumstances where if you have a GRC your files are kept in a locked cabinet with the people in the witness protection programme, it's not just a, this isn't just a sort of an analogy, so the puzzle that the committee needs to solve seems to me is how do you, can you construct a bill which in some way modernises the system, deals with some of the complaints and concerns, but deals also with this jaggy edge and says actually we can, can you separate it out, can you do things that protect single sex spaces in law and in practice because section 22 is a bit of a headache there, but you know clever law can do all kinds of things, but I'm conscious there hasn't been much discussion section 22 in your meetings, I don't know what you're planning to do about that but it's a really huge bit of the bill, we'll come back to it under international stuff. Somewhere in this mix clarifying the law, then the issues about what happens on the ground, what the right decision is in any particular context, how do we manage spaces so that everybody can use them because it matters, do we have sessions to some of which are definitely single sex women ones and some of which are done on identity, all kinds of things are possible in the world if we think cleverly and compassionately about what everyone needs, but your risk here is this, this bill is a bit of a blunt instrument, the old GRA was designed for one very particular purpose, if you want to open out and use it for something a bit different then you have to really think quite hard about how do you get these bits and pull them back in something tidy. Is there anything, Kate and Malcolm, you want to add to this? Firstly I'd like to thank you for raising the issue of religion as an Orthodox Jewish woman, I see that women in my own community are going to be unprotected, so thank you for raising that. I'd like to discuss the allocation to prisons based on the policy, I'm going to defer to Lucy into Susan on their analysis of the legal situation. When we look at what's happening in prisons in England and Wales we can see that 94% of trans women, so male prisoners, are held in the male estate but we've got to break that down into two different cohorts, we need to break it down into the cohort who do have a GRC and those who don't have a GRC. When we look at the ones who don't have a GRC there's only one which represents less than 1% of that total population, there's less than 1% of those without a GRC held in women's prisons. When we look at those with a GRC 90% are held in women's prisons, 90% of them, so whilst a GRC we can see it doesn't automatically guarantee allocation to the female estate, in terms of how the policy operates and the policy objectives, it drastically, markedly increases your chances of a request to transfer being successful. Now looking at the difference in those cohorts and the information I know which I cannot share, I hope you will appreciate that I cannot share this in a public setting but I'm more than happy to share it in a private setting off camera. The allocation decisions are purely on the basis of GRC status, we know that there are prisoners with a GRC who've been convicted of the most serious violent and sexual offences against women and who have intact male genitalia, they pose a real risk. So we've got the question of allocation, then we've got the question of management and the fact that when a policy privileges GR status in this way, any ability for the prison service to conduct these sort of case by case assessments and this flexibility in how you manage this cohort of prisoners is drastically reduced. So if we look at the example which was reported in the media over the weekend, which was of a male bodied prisoner, transwoman prisoner with a GRC, with intact male genitalia, who was reported consensual sex with a very young female prisoner, if that prisoner had not had a GRC, firstly they probably wouldn't have been in the female estate to start with because the things like anatomy are taken into consideration when making those decisions, but now where is that prisoner to be moved to? If that prisoner had not had a GRC, they would have been moved back to the male estate as clearly posing an unmanagable risk which puts women in prison at risk of pregnancy for a start, but because that prisoner has a GRC, they can't be moved to the male estate, they have to be managed within the female estate so that prisoner has been moved to another women's prison to temporarily be housed on the unit known as E-wing, the transgender unit quote unquote, which is where prisoners, male prisoners, transwomen with a GRC, who pose a level of risk that cannot be managed in the main population of the female estate, they're held there temporarily and then assisted in progressing back to the female prisoner estate to the general population. The reason for that is that this group of prisoners, transwomen with a GRC, male prisoners, they are risk assessed as women, they are risk assessed against the standards that are in place for female prisoners and they are risk assessed using the comparator that's in place for female prisoners, so that means two things, it means firstly the set of risk assessment tools which can be used for them is only that which can be used for female prisoners and that is particularly relevant when we look at sexual offenders and secondly it means that one of these prisoners can only be transferred to the male estate if that self-same decision would also be made for a woman, that doesn't happen, we know that doesn't happen and you know if I can just outline some of the things that women in prison who I speak with on a almost daily basis have told me, we've had instances of flashing and sexual exhibitionism, publicly describing masturbatory fantasies and intent, grooming of young and vulnerable women and engaging in sexual relations, threats of physical violence, sexual assault and threats of rape, if a woman, a female prisoner did any of these things, yes she would be treated appropriately, she would be sanctioned, she might be placed in segregation, she might be moved to another prison within the female estate but she's never moved to the male estate, so because we're treating this cohort of prisoners as if they are literally women we can't make that decision to move them to the male estate and the risks you know notwithstanding the language around this, trans women aren't women when it comes to this, we have male rates of offending, we have very often intact male genitalia, they have the strength of the man, they have the appearance of man to these vulnerable women in prison, so when we come to policy decisions having a GRC really really really seems to matter and women suffer, thank you. Karen has a little something so maybe you could come in and that might just, I'm just conscious of a fair bit of areas that we're hoping to cover. Dr Coleman just on that point there you spoke about the sexual activity in prisons, do you believe that it's unusual to have consensual sex in prison? I think that the power relations and the climate of what goes on in prisons would make it difficult to be able to possibly distinguish consensual sex from coerced sex, I think we'd all be naive here if we didn't think that sexual relations between prisoners do go on, but clearly where a male bodied prisoner within intact male genitalia is having any form of sex, consensual coerced or outright violent rape, there is an additional risk which is a risk of pregnancy and that the strength differential which persists between males and females will factor into that, so I think we are talking about something different and you know a female prisoner who has sex with another female prisoner isn't going to be moved to the male estate, so that same decision ends up being made for a trans woman prisoner with a GRC, that prisoner can also not be moved to the male estate because they have to be managed in the same way even though the nature of the activity is inherently going to be different. Okay so you're speaking about safeguarding there in terms of, so you believe the bigger risk is from a person with a penis, but how does that come into play when there are safeguards for any kind of violent or threatening behaviour? I have a prison in my constituency and I've met with them there and there is safeguarding in place for anyone regardless of gender, so that would come into play anyway. What about the risks to trans women and male prisoners? My experience is that those with a GRC are treated very differently to those without a GRC in terms of safeguarding, risk assessment and allocation and that those decisions leave women in prison at risk. So they're treated differently because they have a GRC? They're treated differently if they've got a GRC, if they've got a GRC they are treated as if they are women in every single... Is that anecdotal evidence or do you have that? No, well that's in the policy. That's in the MOJ policy and I know that the Scottish Prison Service policy currently, it operates on the basis of the gender in which the prisoner currently lives and that there is no preferential status as it were given to those with a gender recognition certificate, but what I'd say to that is that this is the first policy revision since 2014 when the policy came into place. During that period of time we've seen three policy revisions south of the border with the MOJ and the direction of movement is certainly towards going away from allocation on the basis of self-declared gender identity and towards making decisions which treat those with a gender recognition certificate as if they are of the sex that corresponds to their acquired gender, but to have a... But GRC, that's the point, yeah? Yeah, but there's no flexibility within that. You can't get the ability to make those flexible case-by-case decisions, which I know the Scottish Prison Service claims to currently be able to do. That is then removed when you privilege GRC status, and that presents a risk as we can see looking at south of the border. Okay, thanks. Seamlessly, Lucy's been keen to come in to talk, because a lot of what Dr Coleman's talking about is the state of England, and so Lucy wants to come in and talk a little about the Scottish Prison Service. Briefly, because we are... But I'll do... Yes, we've got a lot of things that we're conscious we've put in evidence in between. So absolutely, at the point moment the SPS doesn't deal with GRC holder differently, so Kate's point is right that the MOJ has a policy which is extremely obvious, is on paper and in practice, very, very GRC focused, and that's based on their reading of the law. The SPS is reviewing its policies, we met them recently, and they haven't really thought about this. At the moment the SPS policy is GRC blind, that's definitely true, and that's what you'll hear from your own colleagues locally, I know that. And I suspect that's what they'd like to go on being, and actually we would all like them to have a policy which is GRC blind, so that when decisions are being made, the fact that a prisoner has gone through a legal process isn't part of the picture, that all that's looked at is the risk, and everybody, you know, the compassionate care of all prisoners, as you know, because you're dealing with all the prisoners in your constituency. So one of the issues here is that the... Although the SPS may revise its policy and try and keep itself GRC blind, it remains very vulnerable to a legal challenge. As you increase the number of people with GRCs, and also what we do see in the criminal justice system, there is a higher... There's data from down south where they have better data on this. There's a disproportionate number of prisoners who say that they're trans. No, there's a lot going on in prisons, you'll know this, all kinds of reasons why prisoners might claim this, we should look at that data very carefully and be very wary of it. Do you have that detail? Do you share it with us? Yes, you can send it to you, absolutely. And I think what we should think... I don't think that's data, it's anything, it tells us anything about the trans population, but it might tell us something about the prison population, I think that's my point. So the prison system has to be very wary that once you make it possible to get a GRC, at the moment it's quite hard to get a GRC when you're already in custody, for reasons that will be obvious to you as a committee and looking at the current law, once you can self-declare it looks like it'd be very easy for prisoners to get GRCs, it's very hard to falsify. So one of the things we're really, really worried about is that the SPS told us that they had never had a GRC holder than you have, so it's never come up, so that's fine. And they've been able to operate their policy. If you start having a lot, you drop the threshold, I think we all think that one of the sub-populations that you will see applying for GRCs more quickly are people in prison, they will see it as a leveraging thing, as it becomes a way, and it will be quite hard for the prison service to say, well, no, you can't have one. And that's our worry. So I think that this is actually very fixable in the bill. I'm exhausted. The people that are run in the prisons and the governors and that to have a lot of experience. We do, and we want their experience to be what drives this. The problem is once you bring in the legal piece of paper and the change of status, all that experience can be overwritten by one court hearing. It's very easy, though. This is one of the easiest things in the bill to fix. So where would that legal challenge come from? From a prisoner. Prisoners are very litigious, as a general group. There's a lot of litigation from prisoners. Has that happened in the south of the border? It's been very important. Has that happened in cases? It's not happened in Scotland. But the point is that it will once you have a GRC. Sorry. The point is that, at the moment, it's not an issue because it's quite hard. The threshold for GRC is so high. Prisoners, to get a GRC and to have a diagnosis, once you drop it to self-declaration, you make it much more accessible as a process. That's the issue. But you can fix this as a committee. It's one of the very easiest things to fix, actually, which you could just say a GRC is not effective in prison allocation decisions, and you leave it back where you want to be, which is in the hands of the people who make the decisions. So this is a relatively fixable part of the bill. Okay. I think we've covered that session. So, Karen, we're back to you for your substantive question. That was a supplementary one. I think that was a useful discussion. We had the children's commissioner here, given evidence. And he was talking about the importance of autonomy for 16 and 17-year-olds. And I recognise it in some of your evidence that you've given a note in the statements that that is something that you are concerned about. Do you believe that 16 and 17-year-olds know what gender they are? Could I start with Susan? I think that the problem with putting ages on anything is that it can be quite arbitrary. But we know that there are areas where we do allow 16-year-olds to do things under law, and we know there are areas where we have more concerns. I mean, for example, a 16-year-old cannot get a tattoo, because that's considered quite a major decision. So it seems slightly odd if we say they can get a tattoo, but they can change their sex. I think that the crucial thing, which I know the children's commissioner pointed to, is the work that's been done around criminal responsibility and the idea that people are not cognitively mature until they're around about 25. And that is something that, you know, from a psychological and a physiological perspective, puberty has great effects on people as they mature. It really does affect brain development. And I think the point is, when you say what can children know what gender they are, I think one of the things that this committee has to bottom out is what you mean by gender. Because there are no definitions of gender. I don't think the Scottish Government has a definition of gender. You know, it's everything that I have seen in the past. I mean, I know, I believe, I think I've noted down some of the definitions that were floating around at the time of the 2009 contributions, and indeed actually are on some websites still, that their cultural meanings and patterns of behaviour experience some personality labelled masculine or feminine. And their clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, speech patterns and social interactions. Now, I have a great problem with putting those things into law, because those things are fundamentally sexist. They are saying that there are certain ways and certain ways of thinking and behaving and feeling that make you a man or a woman. And most people experience sex and sexism on the basis of their bodies. And what we've seen with the increase in young girls, especially being referred to the services, is that a lot of them have suffered abuse. A lot of them are deeply uncomfortable with their bodies. We know young girls in the past have been the cohort who's self-harm, who have anorexia. And, you know, in a highly sexist world, I don't blame young girls wanting to escape from that. But I think the roots of that need, and this goes back to this idea of diagnosis, we need to think about that. And so then, you know, there are a lot of people who have persistent and ongoing gender dysphoria. And then, if that is persistent into adulthood, that is a different cohort. But what we're seeing especially now in countries like the US who are ahead of the curve on this are the growing number of detransitioners. And that is something you have to be really, really worried about, because those girls have had irreversible treatments, some of them, some of them are left sterile and without sexual function. And because, as we're saying, especially for the young people, and you can read it in the submissions that you've got, a lot of people think that getting a GRC will be a route into medicalisation. You need to be really, really careful with that cohort. I mean, I agree, we have to be very, very careful. And I agree what you're saying about gender stereotypes, because this morning we've already discussed about six foot two people with beards, and I know cisgendered women who are six foot two, and cisgendered women who have facial hair. So I think we need to be careful on the stereotypes. I don't know who the gentleman you're talking about is, so we probably shouldn't use names, because I don't know what you're saying about them. I think you're not agreeing on that point that we shouldn't be, because I'm sure young people in those positions, if we're going to start pushing what we believe stereotypes on them, that could be hurtful. I would like to ask the same question to Lucy, please, about the age, about the autonomy of 16 and 17-year-olds. If I could just, I put on the record, I don't use the term cisgender, because I find it difficult, because I don't get it. It's just a differentiate between trans people and cis people. Absolutely, I understand, just put my position on that. On the age thing, there's a lot to get through. I just want to put a few things on the marker, which is, at the moment, back to age range and what we allow at different ages. It's very messy, which I think the Children's Commission has said in their evidence to the Scottish Government and inconsistent, and it's a process. People grow over time, and we all know this if we have been in 19 ages. And the law, for example, to change your passport, you would still require parental consent for a sex market change on your passport, still. Divorce and marriage gets picked up here. Can you get married? Well, you can get married in 16 at Scotland, but actually there are big moves down south to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18, because people are very worried about young girls, in particular being coerced into marriage. And that's an issue that might come up here to the Parliament for discussion at some point. The Scottish Sentencing Council guidelines season, as mentioned, has asked people to look at the maturation of the brain into your 20s. In Norway, where they do have it, you'll be aware, I think, as a committed on the few places which allow below 16, we can begin to see some concerns emerging, and we've got an article, but we've only got it in Norwegian at the moment, but we can see if we can find a way of getting it translated or sent to you. But again, concerns are emerging there about the degree of children. So I think what I would ask you, as a committed to do, is that these are important questions, and there are people other than us you need to speak to here, and that's probably my main point. I would say, please talk to parents of young people who have been through this. The Bayswater Group would be one. Please talk to detransitioners. Please talk to—and to medical practitioners who deal with people, younger people in the system, because it's a really important group. What you do here will be very important and resonant, and making sure that you've taken evidence that you should, from beyond ourselves. I hope for that conscious of time. Yeah, that's fine, Malcolm. I would say that lots of 16-year-olds are certain about lots of things, and then they're equally certain about the very opposite when they're 18. So I would only say it's incumbent upon us before we hand out certificates crystallising what they thought they were certain about at 16, that we're not making it difficult for them at the age of 18 to go back on that. That's my concern about lowering the age to 16. I think also we've got to be cognisant of the culture that young people are growing up in. I mean, we all know that loads of celebrities are coming out as non-binary or queer. No idea what queer means. No idea what non-binary means. I don't know how a 16-year-old is supposed to know. And they're being told that the BBC is only just a year ago, partly through our pressure, withdrawn a video, that an educational video that told children as young as eight, that there are 100 genders. In fact, there may be an infinite number. I mean, so there's a culture through celebrities, through peer pressure, through loads of social media nonsense that kids are receiving that I think is likely to confuse them. And I think that all we're asking is that we are aware of the confusion in young people's minds. We know, we asked the Government to speak to the Equality Minister to speak to Sinead Watson, who's a very brave detransitioner. She says she knows hundreds of other detransitioners. And these are, in the case of Sinead, she was very sure at the age of 19, I think, but there are other girls and boys that she speaks to who were sure at the age of 18 what gender they were. And then they had to undo everything that they had done to become the sex that they always were. I mean, I'm quite curious and a question comes to my mind that when you're talking, it just sounds so similar to what I used to hear back, you know, in the 80s and the same rhetoric that people are influenced by celebrity and the music industry. And there was that fear that, you know, if we educated our children in regards to section 28 on, you know, LGBT issues that it was going to make them gay, which, I mean, I don't know if you agree, but I'm assuming you agree that that is not possible. People are who they are. Can you see those similarities in your arguments? You remind me of a phrase that's used in a book that I can recommend by Abigail Shryer, Irreversible Damage. She looks at the terrible effects of gender identity theory on girls throughout America. And she says, gay activists in the past were desperate to tell their parents what they were. Trans activists are desperate to tell, or trans kids are desperate to tell their parents what they are not. And that's a very different thing because if you identify as something you are, you can win acceptance and you can describe what that positive aspect of you is. But if you're saying what you are not, and that's what these kids are doing, I am not male, I am not female, that is a very different sort of process. And I don't see any comparison. I was there during section 28. I fought against it. All of the people in the LGBT Alliance management team and the trustees fought against it. There is no comparison. What that comparison is doing, what people from Stonewall who now compare it to the battle against section 28 is using the good name of the gay rights movement to try to make this new set of demands respectable. They are completely different. There is nothing that is similar between sexual orientation and gender identity and there's nothing similar between these two campaigns. Would you agree that that's anecdotal saying that trans people say that what they're not instead of what they are? Because that's not my experience. I'm quoting from Abigail Shlyaya. I'm sure gay people have said they're not heterosexual. Possibly, but I think it's... The point is made that most of the kids who are turning up at gender identity clinics are desperate to tell people what they are not. And we know what they are, they're male or female, and they are going to gender identity clinics usually to try to change their bodies. And so that's why I say it's something that you're not because you're trying to change your body. And if we are encouraging young people at the age of 16, in fact, encouraging young people at the age of 12 and 13 to take puberty blockers because they know what they are not... Who's encouraging, can I ask? Sorry. When you say we, who's... Well, any of the LGBT charities who are advocating for conversion therapy ban... They're forcing puberty block. They're forcing... I didn't say they were forcing, I said they were encouraging. Encouraging. Yes, encouraging. Yes. They are advocating puberty blockers, and puberty blockers are very dangerous and experimental drugs that have unknown impacts on 12 and 13 and 14-year-olds. A 12-year-old who takes puberty blockers up to the age of 16 and then takes cross-sex hormones for a few years stands a very good chance of being infertile. And I think it's a disgrace that LGBT charities are encouraging medical experimentation on young people. And I would definitely use the word encouraging. Right. Thank you for that. Evident... Your evidence. And Dr Gett, in regards to 16 and 17-year-olds... I don't have anything to say about that, but I would like to make a comment following up on something that you said, if that's okay. Yes, absolutely. Yes, go ahead. I think we're just pretending when we say that we are unable to differentiate between a six-foot-two-inch male person with facial hair and a six-foot-two-inch female person with facial hair. I think we can, we can. Certainly women in prison can and they experience people, trans women, very viscerally as male and as presenting a male risk to them. I'd just like to say one last thing about trans men in the male estate, which is something that we haven't touched upon. I consider that to be a live experiment which is not just unevidence, but it's contrary to established evidence which has informed prison practice for very, very good reason. And in respect of one of these prisoners who's held in one of the male prisons up here in Scotland, I'm in correspondence with someone else who's housed in that prison. And that prisoner tells me that that trans man's sex was very rapidly and correctly identified within the prison population that's being female. And I think that's a massive risk to that individual. So how does the GRC process that we're looking at within this bill change what you're saying or is that in relation to other legal... I just want how it relates to the prisoners I would like to say. Because it's a Scottish prison system. What, how it relates at the moment is that our concern is that that a prisoner with a GRC at the moment could bring, hasn't yet, but if you have more of them we'll bring a legal case and we'll pull the Scottish system into the mirror of the English system where the GRC overrides in effect a lot of what have those been done. I can't say enough, this is a very easy thing to fix in the bill though because all you need to do is say a G. There are various things GRCs aren't, can't do, say you can't use them for the period, you can't use them for the priesthood. There's a range of exceptions in the 2004 act relating to a GRC explicitly and a very, very easy way to close down the concern about the relationship between the bill particularly and prison policy would be to exempt the prison, would be to exempt prison placements. And I suspect you'd find there's quite a consensus around that because actually most of the people who advocate here are very, you know, they advocate for a policy which is GRC-blind. Can I ask just for clarity on that? Would that mean that trans men would be going into male prisons and trans women into female prisons? What it would do, it would say, it would separate out the policy decision on the bill and the policy decisions about what we do in the prison estate. So what you would say is the bill would no longer have any impact. Over here there's still a separate discussion to have about the handling of prisoners and what's compassionate and fair and right for everybody. But you would take out of the equation anything that was related to GRCs. So you would just remove GRCs from the equation. Not just keep us at the policy that we have already. It would protect. Which isn't on an individual basis. It would protect. Is that not what we... What it would do is put a fire guard on the road. It would put a protective ring round it. It would mean that you would, it would remove a risk that you are introducing because the risk is what happens as a legal case in the courts. Okay, so you're not, and it's the diagnosis of... No, it's a GRC. It's what's the risk? The risk is a court case of a prisoner with a GRC taking a court case, taking the Scottish Government to court and saying that a policy which doesn't give that GRC extra weight, which is where we currently are, that that policy is illegal, is unlawful, and that in fact the Scottish policy should mirror English policy because a GRC has changed their sex and law and should give them, should override all those assessments. And that is because of the reforms that we're looking at just now? Or is that with the existing GRC? At the moment, it's a tiny risk because GRC holders are very small in number and because the criteria for a GRC are very hard to meet within the prison system, but when you go to self-declaration, it becomes a much lower... The risk, it becomes immeasurably higher of this. I'd be really happy. I'm conscious of time, convener. Yes. It would be helpful. We'd be very, very happy to write about it and explain that. Yes. The thing about the policy, the SPS policy is, as I said at the beginning, is currently under review and we don't know what the reviewed policy will be. The reviewed policy may well be to more closely mirror or to exactly mirror what's south of the border with the MOJ policy, which will see GRC status as, as I said, not guaranteeing allocation to the prisoner's state that matches the sex that corresponds to your acquired gender, but making it far much more likely. Is that anecdotal or... Is what anecdotal? That it operates south of the border like that? Yeah. No, I can give you all of that in a follow-up email, but we don't know what the Scottish Prison Service is going to do. I understand, convener. Sorry. Okay, thanks. Obviously, we're approaching the time that we had allocated, but I'm going to take the decision to extend this session by a further half an hour or hope folk are okay with that. Maggie, you were on a very, very quick supplementary on that point. Just actually on the 16 and 17, and Susan and Lucy, you both referred to the Scottish Sentencing Guidelines. If I could ask you for a yes or no answer, please, because of time. Because the Scottish Sentencing Guidelines talk about having a distinction for under 25. Are you suggesting that the age for obtaining a GRC should be raised to 25? No, I don't think that's the decision that... No, I just wondered why you raised the Scottish Sentencing Guidelines. Because it was about brain maturity and about the cognitive process. It's about how young people make decisions. That's the crucial thing. It's about how young people make decisions. And I think what's not been said here and needs to be said is that there is a really important piece of work that has happened is the CAS review. And I think you need to have a session with Hilary CAS on her findings about how young people have been treated within the system and their understanding of that. And I think you really, really, really need to get onto that because that should provide a lot more answers on this than we can do in a yes or no answer. Okay, I'll... To definitely close this session, Pam Duncan-Glancy, very, very quickly. Thank you. It's just a follow-up on the 16 and 17-year-old part. Some panellists, including yourselves, have concerned around the lack of capacity assessment for 16 and 17-year-olds in the bill. Would you support any amendment to the bill that would create as an assumption that all 16 and 17-year-olds do have capacity to understand the process and its legal implications, as is the case in other law in Scotland? And less in specific circumstances and assessment were defined as not to be the case? I think I would like you as a committee to talk to more people about this. I don't feel that I want to give a yes or no answer to a question like that. I think what I'm encouraged by is the sense in committee that 16 and 17-year-olds require a lot of attention. And all I can really do is say, talk to more people and get a really sense for yourselves of what you think the safeguards and protections are if we're going to drop to 16. And I think that's just the end. And if it needs to stay in there, that this is a big issue that you probably need more sessions on, more evidence, that would be my opinion. Thank you. I would rather say that we've changed to 16 to 18-year-olds in the last decade or the last 20 years that suddenly we need a change. I don't think there's any evidence that 16-year-olds have changed cognitively since 2004. And so I don't see why we should be changing the law. Thank you. Can I move on to Rachel Hamilton, please? Well, it's quite timely. I do need a lie down, I think. But Susan, you mentioned the cast review and it looks like there's a possible suggestion that some of the panel members today would say, you know, look at the cast review and pause the GRA reform here in Scotland. So it's really just, I looked at the cast review and it was about the point that they highlighted about the lack of routine and consistent data collection, which meant that it wasn't possible to track the outcomes for children and young people. And I'll give you specifically mentioned, you know, making sure that there is more therapeutic care and defining that service model and, I suppose, workforce implications. I just wanted to, anyone to expand on this. I know you've all had your good fair share of speaking, but who would like to kick off on that specific? Susan, perhaps, because you mentioned it. Yeah, I mean, you know, this has been a bit of a moveable, this is such a new thing that has happened, that the number of young people seeking help from the gender identity clinics, it's increased exponentially. And I think, you know, it is good that there is finally this review happened, because for a while people were just ignoring that this was happening. Now normally when you have that kind of vast social change very suddenly, you want to understand what is going on. And obviously the review that's come out now is the interim one, so we've still not got the full report. The one thing I would say about tracking data that you rightly raise is that it's much worse in Scotland, actually. So the situation in England for monitoring and long-term is actually better than in Scotland, because we're not even recording what the sex of the children who present at the Sandofford are at the moment. And we've done a lot of FOIs on the Sandofford over the years, and it is incredibly difficult to get information out, and sometimes you have to go to the individual health boards and it's been difficult to get information out on ages, but we do know that children as young as four are being referred there, and that there are a cohort of children around 10, 11 and so on. And there is very little work being done to find out what the long-term outcomes are for these children. Well, there are no long-term outcomes for these children. Any studies that have happened have happened in other countries, and what we find from countries like Sweden now is that they are putting the brakes on a bit, because they're finding that, actually, the long-term outcomes are very negative for children. Okay, Lucy, you suggested that we perhaps heard from... Who is it, Helen? Who did you say? Somebody from the interim cast review? Hillary Cass. Sorry, Hillary Cass. I, Hillary Cass would be a very good witness because she can tell you now about the work that they've done on young people, and when she would tell you where she felt the interactions were with the bill, and that would be for her to say, not for me to prejudge. I do, though, think it is worth talking to the parents, to detransitioners, to others who've been through. There are... There's at least one very articulate detransitioner in Scotland who's been extremely willing to speak, and you might want a private session with some of these people. You might find, certainly, a lot of these people might be much happier in private session talking to you. And everyone here is... I mean, what we all care about, one of you, too, has asked, we all care about these kids. Don't we? I mean, that's what we have a shared. There's no disagreement between anybody about these children and their wellbeing mattering. And what matters here is policy and law, which supports those young people's wellbeing, that is made where you make your law in the context of understanding the broader context. You can't make law as though the world's not out there, as though other things, where it wasn't going... as though it's going to be hermetically sealed and not... You're dropping a stone in a pond and it will ripple. The richness of your evidence base here, I can't emphasise enough. It feels to us very thin, we're worried that you've had one session on this, and it feels inadequate to us at the moment. I'm actually horrified to learn that we don't have the ability, or we are not, conducting that data collection so that we can give the best services to children and young people. Because if that is brought forward and the reforms are accepted within the Parliament, as you say, we're putting the carp for the horse. How can the workforce implications and the services that need to be provided be there if we don't have that evidence to suggest that we know how many people and what circumstances they are in are experiencing? I'm really shocked that the committee hasn't had the opportunity to get into the detail of that. We have several more sessions, we're not even halfway through the session, so I know you're new to the committee, but the committee has agreed a range of evidence sessions going forward, which we can discuss in private. Okay, and would Markham like to come in? I wanted to go back to a couple of things which will relate to this. Karen caught me out there. When people compare it to section 28, there's a whole debate. The reason it's not the same is that after gay rights were given, the percentage of gay people in the population didn't go up. Not at all, it remained exactly the same. However, in the last 10 years, the number of kids who say their trans or non-binary or queer is soaring. So there is something else happening here. And I would only say that we should look at that. As you mentioned, my name, it's possibly because we're creating a safer society and it wasn't really as safe back in the 80s to come out. But why hasn't the population of gay people gone up? It's so much safer for gay people than it was when I was a kid. It has. The percentage of the demography that say that their lesbian or gay hasn't gone up, the percentage of people who say they are queer, non-binary or LGBTQ, whatever that means, has soared. Not people who identify as lesbian or gay. Anyway, that's by the back. One of the things that I think has come out of this session is the intimate link between the cast review, what's happening in gender identity clinics and the pressure on young people and what is being described, this bill as a tidying up exercise to give certificates. Actually, the two things combine and they combine on the impact they are having culturally. I would want to point out that puberty blockers are a huge problem for us. I think the fact that we give 12, 13, 14, 15-year-olds drugs that stop their natural physical and mental development is a medical scandal and it will be seen as that in the future. One of the reasons that we worry about this bill is that it creates at the age of 16 a sort of graduation, a sort of coming out. We all know as 15 and 16-year-olds we were desperate to be seen as adult. You look forward to either going to a pub or getting a driving licence or whatever. This is creating a certificate given by the Government, by the state that says you're an adult. And I think it will be putting pressure on a lot of those 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds to look forward to this moment when they will get their certificate and it will increase the desire to take puberty blockers, the desire of parents to encourage their kids to take puberty blockers. I think the two things, the medicalisation of children, which is what a 12, 13 and 14-year-old person is, a child, and this Government certificate is very intimately connected. And so do you believe that this process should actually be paused until we do consider the publication of the CAS review itself? Absolutely, yes, yes. I'm sorry about that. Okay, I'll give you the opportunity if there was anything you wanted to add. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. And we now move on to Pam Duncan-Glancy, please. Thank you. And it's been quite the session and I appreciate the length of time that you've been here and it has been broad-ranging. So much so that I think that I am concerned about a number of the things that you've raised, particularly Dr Coleman, the experiences that you have shared about what has happened in prisons. But I'm interested to note that they've happened within the current gender recognition certificate process and that people have still been able to be bad actors within that system, which is, of course, unacceptable. I also note that we've heard a lot about puberty blockers and data on healthcare. And I share my colleague Rachel's concerns around data and healthcare in all healthcare actually. I think that if we were a nation that properly delivered healthcare on the basis of data, we'd all be in a very different circumstance. So there is a lot to do there. But again, I feel myself a wee bit struggling to see how this directly relates to the bill in front of us. Lucy, I come back to the point you made earlier on, which I think was excellently put that we have to focus on the bill in front of us here. And the example of what we've heard about in prisons, the examples of puberty blockers, are actually, I think, part of a discussion but probably not directly related to what the bill has in front of us. And so I want to move to talk to you about bits of the bill itself. And my first question is to Lucy on the time period. You've suggested in the bill that there is a way, and this goes back to data collection actually, that there is a way to change perhaps the time period. Should be a single six-month period from application to issue and that you think that could help with data collection. So I'm really keen to hear how you think that would help with data collection. So one of the things that we are concerned about more generally is data collection and the impact of GRCs. And I don't want to maybe delay the committee. I mean, there is a lot to say about the potential loss of data on sex and the risks to that. We thought that the only, it does actually relate to the previous discussion, that the idea that you could walk in, there's been some debate in previous sessions about the cooling off periods and so on the three months and so on. But this is a process by which it would make sense to have some kind of space, what you call it, is up to everyone what you think it's there. But it doesn't need to be a cooling off period, but it's that you go in, at the point you make your declaration, you don't just walk out the door, that there needs to be a gap and that that could be used for various things. So for example, we haven't talked about the statute of declaration, imagine we will, but as an alternative to what we think is a really impossibly non-falsifiable declaration, and with all kinds of problems attached, that you could say that in the next, you make your declaration and when you declare that over the next six months you'll make sure that all your other documents align. So that you've got a complete set of matching documents. So if you have a passport, if you have a driving licence, that you'll do all the documentary change because that's something you can falsify. It means that somebody walks in and does a declaration, then goes through a process of aligning all their identity documents over six months. We have suggested that you might want, we think, the strong reasons not to issue these documents to people who are on the registered sex offenders, registered sex offenders. So that gives you a period to check. Or any other kind of checks you want to do. I've talked about section 22. The section 22 provisions are really heavy duty, heavy, heavy duty privacy protections. They are witness protection type of stuff. They should not be handed out lightly. I am really worried, leaving aside anything to do with sort of bad actors, sexual. I'm extremely worried that we are looking at a state identity protection scheme which you can get by walking in and swearing a declaration. The kind of people I'm worried about and not the kind of people that are going to be very put off, I'm going to say, by the criminal offence here. And I think as a committee, this is when I come back to being a bad government process, there seems to be no analysis to be known. In fact, there's been no analysis and no risk assessment of what it means to make available to people who are just prepared to say something and that is it, this degree of privacy protection. So that gap that you have gives you. So we think a gap there. I'm not, I can't remember, I'm sorry, I'm not sure if data protection was particularly when we picked up there. Data is a big issue there and one that we would like to, we'd like you to think about very hard. Can I ask you just a follow-up then, who are the people that you're really worried about? And can you share evidence of the examples of why you would be worried about them that you've seen from international evidence? Cos I know you've collected a lot of evidence, Lucy. International evidence, I want to come back to the international evidence, is really hard. So the reason I asked about international evidence is because it's only international evidence that has the experience of self declaration. Yes, and I think when you make law that there's a whole issue about the international evidence, partly because we know, so I'm going to give myself a note cos there's a lot to say about the international evidence and I want to get it right. The international evidence says, first of all, that it depends on the legal framework. So not every country that does a GRC is going to give you section 22 type protections. That's very important. Not every country that does a GRC is going to have overlaps with, or we don't know, the relationship between, say, prison rules or single sex services will vary. The Scottish Government, I'm pretty sure I need to check, but I think we asked them if they had any ability to provide what is it in Denmark, Norway? How do these things? What is the bigger legal framework within which agenda recognition certificates sits? And as far as we can see, there's no analysis available of that, nothing at all. So that's the first thing about international comparisons. If you don't know what it's dovetailing with, it's very difficult to say. Second thing about international comparisons, nowhere that's done self declaration is it put in place, any monitoring. And I think the Scottish Government has told us that it does know that. So we have, nobody's done it. And then you get into our, there's another issue I'll come back to when it comes to abusive behaviour in single, around sex. But that is a fundamental problem looking for international comparisons. What I would say as a committee you have to do is, is not latch on to absence of evidence, meaning evidence of absence, which is an extremely insecure way to legislate. You have to go back to first principles about people, your politicians. And you know about people, you deal with law in lots of different concepts. You know when you're making law for Scotland that you think about, for example, we know the sex offending population is extremely manipulative. It is one of the critical characteristics of at least not all sex offenders, but many sex offenders that they are extremely, extremely manipulative. We see that. I mean, the evidence is there. In multiple cases of people who have gone through, in multiple settings, the sport or education or the priesthood. It's not, you don't, you shouldn't need persuading that the sex offending population is very manipulative and very deceptive. People who commit fraud tend to be persuasive, unreliable, dishonest and deceptive. I mean, this is the populations I'm worried about in the population. You have to go back. Why might somebody find it attractive to have over here an identity which is extremely well protected in law and another identity over there? Fancruffsies, frauds. And it's that kind of thing that we encourage you to think about here. Help me understand this then. Have we not already in the 2004 act identified who would be protected under that section? Have we not also set out in the 2004 act what the effect of having a GRC would be? And therefore, which parts of the new act changed those particular aspects? So it's the expansion. So what changes, of course, is the criterion of access. So over here you have a legal instrument. Yeah, you have a legal instrument that has particular effect and what you're doing is you're making it available. It's my lock and key. You're making it. It's like you're handing out keys. So to a much larger group of people, number one, so they're just larger, they're more diverse and they're not defined in the same way. They are defined at the moment. The definition is somebody who can demonstrate who got a diagnosis gender dysphoria and can provide the panel with evidence of having lived in their acquired gender. So that's a pretty limited evidence space. It's just a few documents about showing a name change. But nevertheless, it is an evidence space but the medical diagnosis is a real gatekeeper. Once you make it, the new population of gender recognition is going to be defined as people who are willing to walk into someone's office and swear an oath that they are going to live in their acquired gender for life. That is your new population. And do you believe that that will predominantly be chance people? I believe it could be anybody who's willing to do it. And that's a problem for you as a committee. I mean, I imagine we don't know who will take advantage of it. I just want to make a point that no adult can walk into a school. You have to go through very careful criminal checks. That's not because we think every adult is an abuser. It's because we know there's a tiny, tiny minority of adults that are an abuser. And we're not, I mean, I don't want to leave, I'm sure everyone agrees here that we don't want to leave the impression because we have to talk about these things because they weren't considered in the writing of the bill. We have to raise them, but we don't want to leave the impression that any of us think that the small, vulnerable community of genuine trans people are any more likely to offend than anyone else. The problem is you're creating a process that is effectively the same as taking all the restrictions on adults walking into schools. There's got to be restrictions and it's up to the Government to find a way to solve this problem that there's a tiny minority of people being protected, who need protected, but there's also a group of people who may abuse those protections, who are not genuine trans people. And what is your understanding of how trans people access single-sex spaces now, like toilets, for example, or changing rooms? I'll defer to the experts. Right. So the bill access to different issues and I do think it's important to say there's a big debate and I think it's a bit of an elephant in the room, so I'll name it. There is a big debate, isn't there, exactly what you want to talk about? Who should be allowed into particular spaces when, what rules, what, who's vulnerable, who's not? That's a big debate. What we're really asking you to do is to take GRCs out of that debate. But I get it, right? I understand it. And I'm trying to get to the point of, as legislators, we have a job to do to make sure that this is the best possible piece of legislation it can be to quote something that you said earlier on, which is to provide trans people with validation, destigmatisation, et cetera. So we need to be really specific here. At what point just now are gender recognition certificates, do people have to provide them to use toilets or changing rooms or single sex spaces? No, it's how it affects policies. So what happens with those spaces? Okay, so it's the feed through into decisions made by providers. So it's not the law then that's in front of us. It's the policy that already exists. Well it is, it's how the law in front of you influences providers, it's how they make decisions. So the MOJ is a really good example that she downsized, it's really crystal clear that the MOJ looked at the law, looked at GRCs and said, our policy needs to treat GRC holders differently because of their stronger legal rights. And it's that effect. And that plus section 22 policy makers, and Susan mentioned a Lothian case where Lothian said, and that was the law doing this, but it was probably a reading of the law that section 22 could be improved and clarified so that no healthcare provider doesn't think that they can't they can't say that this member of staff is actually a GRC holder. You know, it's the ability of in particular contexts to recognise sex and to respond to sex and GRCs at the moment, run, kind of crash through that in a way that flows into policy and practice. The more that you can pull GRCs back so they don't do that, so that decisions, I mean, there are really sensitive debates that are not properly had in this committee, I know this in place, about who goes in, where, when. But the GRC kind of just comes through that and affects how people make those decisions and their policies and what we're trying to convey to you is that you can't ignore that that's the case. So is it the effect of a GRC or the process of accessing a GRC that you think needs to change? Well, it's the two things, I would say, that one is that you need to look at the the way that you, what you are, the effect of a GRC critically in this bill, obviously, is a thing that you can do. As the effect of a GRC is what, once you know what the effect is, you can then look at whether your process is the appropriate process for the effect it's going to have and that's where we end up. I think it's very important what you said about the existing bill because what they see is it's a bolt-on onto the old act. And there are problems with the old act, as Lucy said, there are section 22, there are other issues because of this conflation of sex and gender and that has affected policy. We've seen that with the prisons, we've seen that with some of, as I say, with some of the health boards policies talking about genuine occupational requirement. So these problems existed, they are problems with what is already there but when it's expanded they become worse and I think that's the critical aspect to take away is I don't think it's, I think what a lot of people have said to us is well these are already problems and that's true but if they're already problems they really should be sorted out before this, before this is widened and before you know those problems are compounded. So yeah, they are existing issues with the old act and so there are grounds probably for just going right back to the beginning with the GRA and starting again and to find out exactly what is wanted because one of the things that comes through very strongly from submissions is that a lot of the people who are advocating for it are looking for something different they're not really looking for something that's about sex they're looking for something that is about their identity now I might think that I think gender identity ideas are inherently sexist and I don't particularly, I believe my experiences are based on my sex rather than my gender identity but I know some people do believe they have a gender identity and so there is an argument as to well is this not a separate gender assignment is a separate protect characteristic should this not be a separate thing in addition to sex so rather than changing sex maybe that's maybe that's something and then people have the opportunity to put whichever one of the myriad other of things they want on there as well but not to rub out sex because that's the problem it's the idea that this supersedes sex and I would say with single sex spaces there are occasions which are defined within the act where it's really important it's so critically important that we and most of our day-to-day life we don't sit in single sex spaces we don't just go off and only only talk to members around sex or exclude people from meeting room based on those that but there are times when people do really need that and as the critical thing here is that everybody should have provision and I think that's in the new EHRC guidance that everybody should have the dignity of being provided for and looked after but don't remove the dignity or the ability of women to be able to operate those spaces and I know that there are women who work on the front line in the violence against women sector there are even some of the women who are incredibly brave who have spoken out who have said that they would be prepared to come to committee I would suggest in that context you would give them a private session who have had real issues with accessing services and it's something that women and girls in Scotland their huge report on self-exclusion that really needs to be looked at and that is in terms of policy and how policy has been affected by GRA equality act interaction you know we were talking about speaking to Isabel Kerr who was the manager of the Glasgow Rhyper Crisis Centre for 15 years and has advised internationally on the violence on violence against women and trauma and I think she would be a really important person to hear from Can I go to Fulton first if it's a different question cos he's not been in yet and we're really pushing for climate is that okay or is it the same is it following It's a different question completely If it's a different question can I let Fulton in first cos he's sitting very patiently and we'll come back but we need to try and be a little we have another panel coming in we need to be respectful to their time too so Fulton Fulton, thank you for being around one of the difficulties we're going last is that a lot of it's already been covered but you know it's been a really really good debate this morning a good debate a good evidence session so thank you for that I do have a few areas convener but I will try and streamline them in the first one I might just make a comment rather than ask a question that's relating to the the prison discussion that we've had in Dr Kate Coleman I thank you for the evidence I think that actually quite a lot of a good points have been raised in that and I was checking earlier with Steven one of the clerks just to make sure I was right in thinking that we do have SPS coming up soon in a future evidence session so certainly we've got a whole range of questions for them and I think it will tie into Pam Duncan Glancy's point as well about you know we can ask them about how things are working just now under the current system and what they feel is likely to change and I also want to thank Lucy Hunter-Bartman for her suggestions here because I think sometimes this debate out there in the particular on social media but elsewhere as well is painted a wee bit of like have the bill or don't have the bill with very little in between but I think you actually and I think Pam Duncan Glancy noted this as well that he did erase some suggestions about how the bill might be improved or alleviate some people's concerns so that was really good to hear as well The area that I don't think we've talked a lot about today has been mentioned briefly a couple of times but we have had various discussions on us around about sport and we had heard evidence last week from Sport Scotland that you know that they don't feel that this bill will change anything in relation to the way sport currently operates we got the impression last week that it's really down to the governing bodies how they how they manage us and they sometimes go to Sport Scotland for advice and guidance but really they felt that actually this current legislation and how it's drafted doesn't impact sport I wonder if you may be able to comment on that I see both Susan and Lucy Yeah sorry I will try to be brief I mean again this comes back like much else it comes back to section 22 and the fact that once somebody has that level of protection it's very hard it's very hard to prove what sex they are or not so I mean there was recently a a race that we'd love bicycle race e-bike category was won by somebody who is biologically male in the women's section and their entry criteria was very specific that you had to be female you had to be biologically female and it was only because then this was found out because this person that they were able to say actually no you won in the wrong category so you are again relying on honesty and while that becomes less of an issue in elite sports because it's possible that they do more testing it becomes a real issue on the ground in local clubs and grass roots clubs and that affects girls especially at the start of their at the start of their sporting career if they don't have the same access and um so that that's it it is it's it's not some it's something that can be taken out but again it's something that needs it needs people to be able to check the the genuine state biological status of of people entering sports and I know that you know when you say it's up to the sporting bodies this is true but this is another weakness frankly and this is a weakness that that kind of permeates through all of this that there is a societal change and what this build signals is is part of a societal change that we are accepting self-id and that message comes from the top it comes from government and you know as parliamentarians you have an enormous responsibility to society to set that tone and so if you are saying to people we believe that the only criteria as to whether you're a man or a woman is self-identity it becomes increasingly harder for individual organisations to have a policy that is in a position to that and that's what we've seen and then the reality then becomes the person making these decisions is often say a lowly paid receptionist at the sports centre who is trying to tell somebody they can't go into a man any session and it's they are not sure of their protections they are not sure of the law and they really really need clarity and because as Lucy said it's such a contested and confused area and people don't have that clarity the practical implications of doing this will affect areas like sport even though even though Edith's possible to carve out the exceptions under the equality act so why do you think we heard such strong evidence from the sports organisations as well as others that you know I mean they were really quite clear I was you know I was quite I thought whether evidence might go last week but I had an idea but I was quite surprised by just how clear they were in terms of the sorry just a second so I was going to ask what why do you think they had that view and what they were also telling us last week was that there's a lot of examples already where trans people are already playing in sports and are valued members of their sporting communities so what do you think would change with the bill I and I think as I said it's this it's this social person it's making it harder and it's the level of it's the level of secrecy but also what you have from those sporting bodies is you have those sporting bodies have set their own independent guidelines now all the evidence all the scientific evidence with sport I mean sport is one of the clearest things in the world that there is physical differences between males and females and that is why ultimately sport has probably more or less come down on the fact that sex categories need to remain distinct because it's probably the biggest area where people can look and they can look at the swimming in the US college events recently and see the physical difference between a male swimmer and a female swimmer it's self-evident this permeates through everything so it's not just but sport has been a useful thing but the problem is as I say once you make it harder to work out who has a GSE and who is genuinely male or female you make it harder to prevent people accessing those sports and could I could I yeah but what I just want to think I'm just going to say really quickly what would have happened to that sporting body if they'd said the opposite I'd only say that a lot of they may well genuinely believe what they say I presume let's assume they do but every single institution organisation of sporting body that would say the opposite from what they said would be trolled bullied and called transphobic and that's one of the problems this entire process faces is organisations cannot be honest about their real concerns about risks well I guess that's I guess that's part of the reason why we take evidence I'll keep your next we really are running over time tiny tiny I was going to bring what I was saying but I was just going to comment now I guess that's why we take it why we take evidence and we don't you know control what committee members what people are are going to say right to speak about this here so there are female athletes who'd be really happy to speak to the committee and we would encourage you to get them and to talk to them about how it is on the ground but just talking about that evidence session cos I sat listening and what really struck me was all the way through there was not a single reference to section 22 section 195 it's exactly right it's exactly right that in section 195 you have one of the really clearest equality act carve-outs and that's clear and that's useful but there was no discussion and it seemed to me deficient in the evidence you were given that at no point was the section 22 effect discussed I think that that's a problem from that evidence session for yourselves to think about it okay thanks thanks very much for those answers one more line of questioning can you actually see the convener's eyes are burning through me and already being just eyes but and I'll join these together then there has already been a bit of discussion on it but I wonder if any of the panels would like to put on record their views on the two provisions in the bill around three months both to live in the acquired gender for three months and then the three-month reflection period as I say I know there's been some light discussion already on it but if any if anybody wants to particularly comment on those two provisions your thoughts yeah I think one thing that's been missed is the reason for that two year idea originally in the bill was because in the act in 2004 was that we were talking about this tightly defined great most of whom would have been transsexuals and so there were people who were undergoing a process and they were presumed to be going through a medical process and a surgical process and the two year was really in there as a safeguard for them because taking those decisions is a massive step the the point about the the time period in a sense is I believe it remains important for people to be safeguarded against making a hasty decision especially if you know you might you might find you might find that you change your mind you know if it's just that day but the the real issue is the time is not the time is not the critical thing the issue is the definition is the critical thing who you are allowing to access this and if there was a way to ensure that you were still allowing the same tightly defined group of people to access this then time is not time is not the big factor the big factor is who you let get the certificate very quickly neuroquad gender what does that mean and and so we have a a provision that's indefinable and vague no one checks up on it is that is somebody going to phone somebody and say are you living in neuroquad gender when the person says yes or no it's meaningless so I strongly suspect that it's what's in the professional terms there's a fig leaf it's just a fig leaf to show that some provision has been put in there it's one of the few points of agreement I would say you're going to hear between witnesses on different sides of this debate is that you'll hear evidence from people coming who support the bill and ourselves saying that living in an acquired gender is sexist and regressive and reinforces stereotypes and you've heard it from Ellie and you've got it in written submissions it's a really problematic idea to have in legislation time periods are a slightly different thing but the concept of living in an acquired gender is not one that you're going to find support okay I'm going to have to say thank you all so much and I guess that the point of consensus at the end there across different views is maybe a good place to end so thanks for that Lucy thanks to all of you and obviously this has taken longer than you previously agreed to so thanks for bearing with us we have covered a huge amount of area so I'll now suspend to change witnesses and for a 10-minute comfort break thank you welcome back I now welcome to the meeting our second panel of witnesses Catherine Murphy Executive Director of Engender Sandy Brindley Chief Executive of Christ of Scotland Naomi McAuliffe Scotland Programme Director Amnesty International and Jen Ang Director of Policy and Development Just Rights Scotland you're all very very welcome can I now invite our witnesses to make short opening statements starting with Catherine Murphy please thank you convener Engender welcomes this opportunity to speak to the committee today we are a feminist policy and advocacy organisation that has worked for 25 years to advance equality between women and men in Scotland we work across women's economic, social, cultural and political inequality and advocate for changes to law and policy to better realise women's rights whilst reform of the gender recognition act has not been a primary policy call for Engender since 2017 we have been aware of the links made in public debate media and elsewhere between gender recognition reform and women's equality and rights we've subsequently carved out space in intervening years to understand and consider the issues and engage with the development process of this bill in addition to our day-to-day work engaging women across Scotland on their lived experiences and the key areas of unfinished business for women's equality and rights we have sought to understand the perspectives of those who oppose the bill and specific concerns on relation to its impact on women we've gauged with women's right with women's services numerous consultations and working groups and we commissioned Scotland's leading legal expert in gender equality and human rights to help us analyse the related issues in more depth across several years of extensive consideration of this legislation our headline finding is that the proposed reforms to the gender recognition act will not negatively impact on women's equality and rights Polarisation and inaccuracies in some areas of the public discourse around the bill have unfortunately led to a perception that this bill and the broader aims of trans inclusion and rights are fundamentally in conflict with the aims of women's equality and gender does not share or uphold that view we are confident that reform will not have any adverse effect on the capacity of the equality act and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women CEDAW to protect women from discrimination and advance women's equality equality and rights we do not believe that trans equality and women's equality are in competition with each other rather we see the path to equality for women and trans people as deeply interconnected and dependent on shared efforts to dismantle patriarchal intersecting systems of oppression that impose barriers to full equality furthermore as advocates for equality we are invested in and will always seek to support efforts by government to adhere to international best practice in the inclusive law and policy making and human rights standards we therefore broadly support and welcome the provision set out in the gender recognition reform Scotland bill Thank you and if we can now go to Sandee Brindley please Good morning At Great Christchurch of Scotland we believe that anyone who has experienced sexual violence should be able to access support at the point of need we run a daily helpline for anyone affected by sexual violence and we support the work of 17 autonomous Great Christchurch centres based across Scotland from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway who provide life saving support to survivors of sexual violence The majority of rape crisis services across Scotland provide support for women for men and for non binary people There is no service in Scotland that requires a gender recognition certificate to be able to access support Where services are women only we do not require documentation or proof All rape crisis services in Scotland are inclusive of trans women and this has been the case for 15 years and all this time there has not been a single incident of anyone abusing this The provisions of this bill will have no impact on how rape crisis services in Scotland are delivered Thank you Thank you I'm now Naomi McAuliffe please Thank you Thank you convener and to the committee for inviting us to give evidence on this bill Amstey international has been consistent in our support for the introduction and progressive reforms to the process for obtaining legal gender recognition in multiple countries and jurisdictions around the world including Scotland and at Westminster We've been disappointed by the slow progress down south and we really do commend the Scottish Government and Parliamentarians across the political spectrum for showing leadership on this matter Scotland must align with international standards and best practice in upholding rights related to gender recognition As we addressed in our joint submission with Just Right Scotland the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was a positive step for this country but nearly 20 years later best practice and standards have moved on and the GRA has been shown to not be working for trans people Making the necessary changes to the process and obtaining their gender recognition certificate is in line with the leadership Scotland has taken on a number of human rights fronts especially children's rights responses to violence against women and girls and the upcoming legislation to incorporate further international human rights treaties following on from the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and lastly I just wanted to comment on the solidarity and consistency of approach across human rights and equalities groups in Scotland it's very clear and I think it's been demonstrated to the committee trans people make up a small percentage of Scotland's population and yet there has been clear and committed support for these reforms from different sectors of civil society representing the rights of women and girls children's rights and human rights more broadly and with that I'll welcome any other questions and hand over to the next Pelenist Thank you and can I go to Jen Ang please Thank you convener Just Right Scotland in our joint written submission with Amnesty Scotland has welcomed the introduction of this bill on the basis that it brings Scotland closer in line with international best practice with regard to legal gender recognition processes Importantly by supporting the removal of the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria as well as the need to include intrusive and detailed medical reports about choices people have made with their bodies We provide direct legal advice and representation to people who face discrimination across Scotland including discrimination on account of their trans identity We believe that reforming the process in line with international best practice is essential to upholding trans people's right to identity and dignity and also to reducing discrimination against trans people in Scotland over time This is most simply about improving the process for ensuring that trans people have equal access to what other people take for granted here an identity document that reflects who we are and how we live our lives With respect to the extension of the process to children ages 16 and 17 we've noted in our written submissions that if steps are taken to do so the process may have to differ from that for people over 18 and we'll have to take into account the principle of evolving capacities of young people as set out on the committee on the convention of the rights of the child and corresponding appropriate protections We refer to the evidence given earlier to the committee by Bruce Adamson our commissioner for children and young people pointing out that such processes must recognise both the growing autonomy of young people at these ages as well as the need to continue to protect and support them Finally we would support further discussion around the definition of ordinary residence as a criteria for eligibility if a person is not subject to a birth register entry Specifically we're concerned that the definition could exclude people who have chosen to make Scotland their home but are not yet ordinarily resident in terms of their migration status which is, I think, different to the point that's been raised elsewhere in these hearings We see this as unnecessary and potentially discriminatory and would advocate for amendment or guidance that either requires simple residence or specifically includes certain categories of people with some form of leave and there's a bit of a note in our evidence around refugees and asylum seekers but I think maybe there's a wider discussion Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence to the committee today and we look forward to answering any further questions you may have about our submissions That's great Thank you all very much So we'll now move to questions and first of all Maggie Chapman, please Thanks very much Joe And good morning to the panel Thank you for being with us this morning for the evidence you've given us in your opening statements in writing and also thank you for waiting I know that the previous panel went on a bit longer than maybe we anticipated Jen, if I can come to you first you spoke in your initial comments about your support for the removal of the need for a gender dysphoria diagnosis and I just wondered whether you could say a little bit more about why that is so significant and why that's so important and we heard this morning earlier on about the need to retain medical gatekeeping and I just wondered if you could comment on that and I'll come to the other panellists in a moment Thanks, Jen Absolutely, suit Sorry, what's that? Approved Absolutely So as we've outlined in our evidence and also has been thoroughly covered in the Scottish Human Rights Commission evidence and the Scottish Trans Evidence over time as we've seen basically international best practice has moved on significantly from the position as it was in 2000 specifically we've seen that the Council of Europe in its 2015 parliamentary resolution has spoken about the need for quick, transparent and accessible processes for legal gender recognition based on self-determination and more recently in 2021 the UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has pointed out that actually best practice for states is to look at systems that are both based on self-determination and a simple administrative process not connected with the need for things like medical certification, surgery treatment and so on we've also seen and this has been covered in other evidence increasingly a number of other European member states and other states have implemented legal gender recognition systems similar to what you're looking at today and I think actually that's to the advantage of what Scotland is looking at now because it is open to you to take evidence on the history and the practice of these systems which have actually been in place for a number of years in some cases but I think on the evidence it is clear that international standards have moved on and this is a positive progressive move and is appropriate for consideration at a time when we're looking to amend the reform act now. Thanks, Jane. Naomi, if I could come to you on some of the questions around gender dysphoria the need for in your view is there any need for that kind of medical gate keeping that we heard this morning? No, I'm very similar to what Jen has already said around the changes in best practice internationally around this. Medical gate keeping is putting the power and the hands into medical professionals who are there obviously in a support capacity for the needs of individuals. It's saying that individuals are not able to define their own trans status and in terms of both bodily autonomy and the protection of rights of those individuals itself it's out odds with that. As Jen has said that there is already plenty of examples from Denmark, from mortar, from Ireland, from Portugal of where self-id has been introduced and that's the direction of travel that Scotland and the rest of the UK are catching up with. I would also point out around the Jogakarta principles which are a set of international principles around LGBT equality and in the preamble to that it talks about the need for to rely on the current state of international human rights law will require revision on a regular basis in order to take into account developments in law and its application to particular lives and experiences of people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities over time. That is a key human rights principle in many different treaties and declarations which is that these are living instruments they are things that develop over time and whereas the GRA served its purpose at that time and place we are now seeing a kind of change in practice and this is about keeping up with that. Thanks Naomi Catherine if I could come to you we heard in we've heard in previous sessions from witnesses that not all trans people will have genders this for it it's not a feature of all trans people's experiences of their own identity and I'm wondering whether in genders policy and advocacy work there have been discussions or you've engaged with people who have had a very clear problematic relationship with medicalisation with the issues that maintaining or keeping such a diagnosis and the psychiatric assessments that go along with that in any gender identity process would require can you comment on that? Certainly in addition to I would certainly support the points made by Naomi and Jen around this and from in genders point of view it's hard for us to see the justification for inclusion of psychiatric the continued inclusion of a psychiatric diagnosis given the well documented decision by WHO and others in the evolving human rights standards I think also as well as advocates for women's rights we are very acutely aware of the long and unfortunate history of pathologisation of LGBT identities and bodies and women's behaviour in bodies and we are acutely aware of the harm of unnecessary medical barriers that are put in place particularly around deeply personal decision making so we are aware of that and from Jen's point of view we would certainly be against we want to see the removal of these kind of damaging precedents that use pathologisation and medicalisation as a form of social control and we don't see any justification for the continuation of that in the new bill there's no certainly no medical justification and we think it is a manifestation of a broader trend which we really want to see the end of so thanks very much Catherine Sandy, if I could come to you you spoke very your statement it was very very clearly in along the lines of Rape Crisis Scotland and the member member organisations the network has been transinclusive for for 15 years and operating without an issue can you say a little bit more around how you have dealt with issues around this sort of medicalisation of trans identity if it's come up in services that either you or Rape Crisis Network members have experienced I'm not sure that is something that I can speak to from a Rape Crisis perspective no that's fine thanks can I have another question Catherine can I come back to you one of the one of the other issues we heard around those who are not supportive of reform of the gender recognition act speak of the issue of widening up the group of people that might be eligible to apply we heard that this morning and we've seen it in evidence elsewhere what is your view on that argument that the reform we're currently considering opens up the GRC process to a wider group of people what is your view on that and do you think there are any measures of safeguarding or mitigation that we need to be thinking about as we consider this Beyond the very obvious point that the current process can be quite obstructive for trans people and the purpose of this bill is to make the lives of trans people easier around the kind of security of documents and that may lead to some uptick potentially but in terms of a broader wider group of people we don't see any evidence that that is the case and we don't see that this bill as it is written substantially changes you know some of the the current issues around protection for women's equality etc so no we haven't seen any evidence that this would lead from our perspective to an enormous widening of the group of people who would want to seek GRC Thanks Catherine Naomi, I wonder if I could come to you on a similar point I think some of the concerns were with the removal of any medical or psychiatric diagnosis I think we heard anybody who wanted one could apply for one do you see that as problematic? That in terms of the evidence we've seen from other countries that hasn't come to pass as Catherine has said very few trans people and people who are recognised to be trans people within Scotland actually have a gender recognition certificate it's already been identified that there's barriers to that happening so there will be a widening in that those people who don't currently have one may want to get one if they need to change documentation but we've seen for example in Ireland which has got an equivalent of a population to Scotland of around about five million people they've had fewer than 900 applications when self-id was introduced so that's pretty much a measure of it with the population of trans people that we would expect Thanks Naomi and Jane I wonder do you want to come in on this as well that kind of the concerns around opening this up to anybody? Absolutely I think to be clear what we're looking at is reforming a process that has been described as a breach of people's individual rights and also unnecessarily difficult to to succeed in and actually I've spoken before about the fact that we provide direct legal representation advice to trans people and many of our clients just as just as you find many trans people in the population do not have GRCs and the reason they don't have them is because of the barriers that they would face at the moment in obtaining one so it is right to see that in seeking to change the eligibility criteria we're seeking to remove barriers that are seen to be harmful or are seen to have been obstructive for people trying to achieve their rights and so should it be should it be easier for people who want to obtain a GRC to obtain one after this? Yes, absolutely is that a problem it shouldn't be that is the purpose of the reform I think that there has been concern in discussion about whether a much larger group of people than those who are intended to benefit from this might be eligible under the scheme and I suppose my response would be that there are clear safeguards in place already so the the offence that would be in place for fraudulent statutory declaration for example is one of the clearest examples of a place where we have looked at and dealt with this difficulty Okay, thank you very much I'll leave it there for me Rachel wants a small supplementary on this The main question which actually links in so I'll ask it just now on the point there that Jen made Do you believe that there would be unintended consequences of not having a medical diagnosis in that it may as some have highlighted shield a criminal so therefore it provides some sort of with an invisible cloak from their past and that removes the safeguards to vulnerable women I think so the question is would I do I believe that removing the requirement for medical diagnosis creates an unintended consequence of shielding a criminal I mean I think when here's the thing we have as I said before a law on the books that has been identified as out of step with international best practice and that at the moment the processes that we have for legal gender recognition are causing harm so they're actively causing harm to a group of people the focus of the reform of the legislation is in order to redress that issue the proposal has been among other things to require the creation of a criminal offence or to rely on an existing criminal offence which is which is making a full statutory declaration and in my view I mean I think it's open to the committee as I said to look at alternatives but I don't see that that I don't see that that in itself is a sufficient concern in order to stop the reform that is proposed I just wondered if any of the other panel members had a view on that but also to expand the question into what evidence have you seen during this process that we're at right now that a false declaration actually would be effective Sandy, do you want to come? Yes, yes, no I can come in here I think if someone changes their gender using a gender recognition certificate it will not enable them to escape a criminal past and the past criminal records so for example at the request of Scotland we have really clear safeguarding procedures in place in relation to PVGs and if somebody has committed a rape that rape would still be indicated to us even if they changed their gender so I'm not sure that there is a risk there in terms of safeguarding And Sandy, just to be clear is that somebody who was convicted with a rape so therefore I've had a criminal record and so therefore there could be there could be an unintended consequence that there was people who hadn't been criminally convicted that you know that I suppose that's just what would you explain that as just life but you know how are women how are women protected vulnerable women protected in that circumstance I mean I haven't seen I'm new to this committee today and I haven't seen any evidence that the false declaration has really been looked at at all within this process And I suppose what I can say is that we've been trans inclusive on the basis of self-id for 15 years and we've had to know experience of reports of anyone abusing that system and I know you had the Public Human Rights Commission here given evidence so that we can they were specifically asked did they have any examples of people abusing the system internationally where self-id has been introduced and they weren't able to to give any example so I think it's absolutely right to be really cautious about any legal reform and unintended consequences but certainly from the evidence I've seen there is no evidence of people using systems of self-id to abuse, for example, women with indie prices services Okay, thank you Pam Duncan-Glancy Thank you, convener and good afternoon to the panel thank you for joining us and thank you for your submissions in advance I want to ask first of all about the international evidence and if it's okay now me could you tell us a little bit about your understanding of the international evidence that exists on any potential positive or negative impacts of self-id from the other countries who've brought it in Yes, so we have looked into this as you'll know and I'm sure you've got this evidence from others already that at the moment there are six EU states who've adopted a self-determination approach Denmark was the first back in 2015 it's worth also flagging that Denmark took what is known as the Argentinian approach so actually this does stem from elsewhere in the world not just from Europe and then quickly to follow Denmark was mortar and island and we've since then seen Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal and that again is within the EU we also have Iceland and Norway who've taken similar amendments in all of the surveys we've done we haven't been able to find this if anything we have found evidence of where the reforms that we were brought in could have gone further so for example there has been some criticism of waiting times that have been brought in through some of these processes themselves and realised that others have brought up some kind of individual cases they're ones that again we don't take our evidence on the basis of newspaper reports or blogs we do need to independently verify them and we haven't found it to be a huge problem again we are already looking at something that is seven years worth of evidence now in these places talking to colleagues in this country in these countries it doesn't seem to be a huge problem we will obviously continue to monitor that situation but again I think as Jen has mentioned previously it's about how much the harm that a process that we currently have on individuals with any potential harm to that self-id might bringing at the moment we're not seeing that as comparable to the actual harm that it's doing to trans people who are not able to obtain gender recognition certificate through a self-id process thank you that's really interesting about the balance of harm and where the evidence lies could you also do you have anything that you could share with us from experience from these countries about how they've dealt with some of the issues that we've heard around about around single sex spaces and I do have a specific question for you Sandy that I'll come to you on that in a second but just from the international evidence how have other countries balanced and dealt with this conflict that people have put to us? I think it's very similar kind of circumstances that we have in Scotland in the UK which is that we live in a society at the moment where most of our processes are already on the basis of self-id so to access most services to go into toilets to go into changing rooms to access various different other single sex spaces people are not asked for a gender recognition certificate and so similar to within the UK as internationally there are already safeguards and opt-outs in law for single sex spaces but they are very much exemptions that do have to be justified on the basis of of a quite stringent criteria we already have that in the UK and I think that it's been very much the same experience in these other countries as well Thank you and on a similar vein as I said earlier Sandy I would have a question for yourself could you set out how your services currently provide support to the women who come who come for services and also how you currently protect single sex spaces and whether or not you think have an agenda recognition certificate as a material factor in that I'll start with the last point first which is that it's not a material factor and that it has never been the case that any single sex service as far as I'm aware in Scotland and definitely not a reprises service has ever required a gender recognition certificate or asked somebody to provide any proof of their gender in terms of how we deliver our services it's very much with survivors at the heart of these services it's a very individual service I think people sometimes have worries about attending a reprises centre and just to reassure people that it's very private it's very confidential it's not going to be a waiting room full of people where you're having to mix with lots of different people it's very much you'll go in it's unlikely you'll see anyone apart from the councillor or your support worker at the very start of any support we offer somebody we do a needs assessment and a risk assessment just to work out what does somebody need and make sure the service that we are delivering is tailored to their needs we have been support and survivors a sexual crime in Scotland now since 1976 our first service was set up what survivors tell us is a life saving service but I think we have a responsibility in delivering our services to be inclusive of anyone who needs them and what we know is that there are particular groups of women where there are barriers to access in our service and we believe that as our responsibility as an organisation to proactively make our services feel safe and welcoming for everybody who might need them in that that does include the trans community as well who are at risk of sexual violence as all women and as all members of the community are so for us there is no conflict in terms of providing our services in this way we noted the point from the earlier session in terms of religion and making sure that services are provided sensitively and I think that that is absolutely possible when there's some really really good practice from some of our specialist organisations working with Muslim women in Scotland about looking at how do you provide sensitive culturally sensitive services that meet the needs of as wide a range of women as possible and I think it's absolutely possible to do that by looking and thinking really carefully about how you deliver your services but crucially those discussions are not impacted by a gender recognition certificate and that this bill that is being considered by this committee will have no impact on those decisions by service providers about how they ensure that their services are provided sensitively to all women who might need them I just have one final question on that if that's okay thank you we heard earlier in the session that some women were opting out of attending single sex spaces and services for for women like great crisis centres is this something that you're aware of have you heard about it what would your response to that be? Yes, we've been trans inclusive in our services for 15 years this is obviously an initiative that's come up very recently really triggered by a lot of the debate around this this bill so what I would say is that the numbers that survivors and women use in our services really increase every single week there definitely has been no reduction in demand in our services but I would say that if anyone has any concerns at all about accessing our services please get in contact with their local service because we will do everything we can to talk through any concerns you have because what we want to make sure is that anyone who needs our services feels comfortable and able to use them thank you thank you and if we now go to Pam Gossel please thank you convener good afternoon panel and thank you for your opening statements and the evidence you've provided I just want to go back to what Pam Duncan Glancy has asked and probing that a little bit more you know you speak about single sex spaces and providers that this bill would not in any way reflect on the services given or the single sex spaces you can go in so if you can probably help me hear how it's going to work here so if you have somebody from the Muslim faith or Indian faith using that single sex space their daughters mothers or anybody that's going into those places and at that moment they don't know who's in that bathroom obviously when they go and use that space right but when they look around and they see they probably just see it a person think it's a female that's it and it's okay but if they see something different in there that how do you work round that that but safe for them how can you say to the Muslim community and most of the Asian community that they're safe going into bathrooms when you're opening up this bill to basically that a lot more people can be part of this bill and the second thing is I mentioned earlier onto this panel about doctors now earlier on in our witnesses a couple of weeks ago I asked a question in relation to doctors that if a doctor was a transdoctor would that person have to tell that Asian or anybody that female that they are and I was told no they don't have to so that would mean that basically you are breaking somebody's religion completely because that person wouldn't see and wouldn't know but unknowingly it would break so how can just a bit of practicality I want round this to see if you can help me out that how would this work this bill I can quickly respond to the toilet point just in general currently as you'll know that there is no policing of who uses female toilets and I don't see how that would be possible or desirable to please who used public toilets and certainly this bill is not going to in any way change our effect to who uses toilets I suppose I do worry a little bit like you hear more and more about particularly for lesbian women who are not stereotypically feminine presenting being challenged when they're using public toilets and it does really worry me about what that says about where we are as a society in terms of policing how women look and appear in that way like who has the right to say to women you don't look like a woman you shouldn't be using this toilet and I do know for the trans community and for trans women in particular but trans men as well you hear really heartbreaking stories of people being scared to leave the house because if they need the toilet what are their challenges using a public toilet and I just don't know that that's who we want to be in Scotland at that level of policing but fundamentally this bill will not change in any way who uses what toilet and it's the bill that you're concerned with I think is a committee just on that Sandy so how do you how do restaurants, bars out there you know people that are those single sex toilets how do they police that from keeping away from bad faith actors accessing that sorry yourself Sandy yeah yeah I mean I I don't think I can speak for the the the the restaurant industry here just anything I'm talking about any public toilets or anything public spaces yeah they're very much self-determining and I don't know any institution or private company that places who uses the toilet I mean how how would you do that so that's what I'm asking you I'm asking you is there a we would it not be harder for basically providers if this bill was to go through and the justification that people would have to give that using that I'm not I'm not either that you know for or against what I'm trying to say is that how would it work but that's fine your answer just would anybody be able to ask the answer that sorry the question on the doctor's side the medical side I mean I just to reinforce the fact that the bill that wouldn't substantively change how people access spaces public spaces and toilets etc and it doesn't create an additional duty for owners or proprietors to do any more policing of those single sex spaces than currently exists at this moment in time and in terms of any incidents that happened where a woman was attacked in toilets by any individual that would be an issue for the police and I don't think that this bill in any way changes the current status quo with regards to accessing those spaces I don't know if you can I can't quite if you could repeat the specific question on doctors I'll see if I can add to that yeah it's just basically we asked why I asked the question witnesses that came a while back the question about a you know Asian female going to a doctor normally I mean my mum would see that it's a man or a female on the desk but if they don't know they'd see a female and it is appearing sometimes Sandy you're right and whether that's right and wrong but that's my I'm sorry my mum's an older lady she's she doesn't know any better she should see what it is but is it up to the doctor to say what if you're going to break that some kind of Muslim or Indian faith that's a fact of religion that no they can't be touched by somebody that's trans because religion doesn't understand it not accept it doesn't understand it so how do you work round those religious groups well I would say that I mean the most the first thing is that that is currently the situation will not change if this bill progresses that is currently the situation with regards to accessing doctors that is not to suggest that there can't be more you know I think that across the board in all our public services we need to work to ensure that we have more inclusive sensitive public services where we're meeting the needs of a wide range of minoritised groups but I think the point I really want to underline is that that is the current situation as things stand at this moment with regards to access and doctors and that won't substantively change if this bill passes okay sorry I probably need to see a little back just for example a woman going into a doctor right now can see basically whether it's a male or female that I'm using my mum's analysis here going in right male or female they'll see and they'll be fine but what if it was a trans right and you knew that you were seeing an Asian woman right would that trans be able to say that they're a trans would they be able to say that and I asked that question I was told no it wouldn't be up to them to say so that means that woman that Asian woman in there would not know and the religious wouldn't understand it so it's just what you said a little bit more about awareness about this so that people understand and having that service for everybody well I think I mean I'll maybe I think that trans people would would do have a right to privacy in the law and I don't think that that will change as part of this legislation nor should it and I I you know I think that and there are you know I think that there are things that can be done to make sure that there's provision of sensitive services but I don't think that the disclosure of some you know a deeply personal identity or shown birth certificates or anything like that would be any kind of situation that we would we would want to necessarily move towards but I don't know if others want to add to that I think it's breaking their religion so if a trans person touched sorry I need to really break this down sorry convener this is very important so if a trans person that was a male before and now trans and examined that Muslim lady right and she did not know you're breaking her religion by basically her religion does not state that another person bar a female can basically examine her so I'm trying to break this down so I think that the answer we've had back was that this the situation won't change because people are not asked for a GRC right now but Jenny you maybe wanted to ask and answer a little bit more yeah if it's okay I just I feel like I could maybe help a bit here I understand the question that you're asking and I'm just I just wanted to add a few so it's really because I do understand the question I think there are a couple things one is about I think you're raising a question about what if there is a conflict of rights or if there are competing rights to balance and I definitely want to come to that but I also want to add that or to underscore what my colleague has said which is that we're not talking about removing the gender recognition reform act we already have a procedure in place and so what you're describing already in in law and practice could occur in the sense that if someone has a gender recognition certificate one of the key things about it is that they are entitled to privacy around obtaining the certificate your question though I mean it's a really good one and I think it's something that we this is an area where when you're changing law it's important for people to have kind of full and frank discussions and actually it would be good for the public to have a wider understanding as well about how legal gender recognition works and kind of what our our mainstream expectations that's something that definitely the health service could bring up and one of the things that the health service does really well actually is trying to tailor at services to deliver them in culturally and religiously appropriate ways and age appropriate ways in ways taking account of who we all are in ourselves so it feels like a stream of work that actually NHS Scotland has looked at or has looked at but it is really important as well to know that in having our our rights in certain areas protected it doesn't give us absolute rights over other things so just to be really stark if for example my mother had said to me that I actually only want a Chinese doctor that is not necessarily going to be an expectation that can be met so there are some areas in which we allow people because we're thinking carefully about things like access to medical care appropriateness computing rights and so on that that would be that that's something for us to consider and there are other areas where the national health service bakes a decision about the processes in place and those are clear and transparent processes to come back to your question though because I heard your question about what if we are breaching one person's rights around religious practice or expression in the course of inadvertently in the course of maintaining what is the current system I think that as has been outlined earlier and this is something that I'd invite Naomi to speak to as well we know that this is operating within our current human rights frameworks and also the equality act 2010 we know that both of these frameworks provide really well understood mechanisms for balancing rights we know that the Scottish Human Rights Commission has stated that they don't see in this area a clear risk to the rights of others but if there were to be such a case we would look to the question of whether there's a real and concrete risk and if so we'd need to think about whether the balancing mechanism needs to come into place so whether the exercise of one right causes that real and concrete prospect of harm if so we would look at the most minimal intervention we would look at proportionality and we would look at the impact on society so I just wanted to reassure you that you know that fortunately this is a conversation that can or should be had but also that we need to have some faith in the idea of the decades of case law that we do have where this has been looked at in other areas Yeah I'd just like to add to that as Jen has said is that a human rights law and framework and human rights based approaches gives us the tools and mechanisms to be able to judge these kind of individual cases and look at effective remedies for them so cases around where there is a perceived to be a conflict between a certain groups rights and faith groups and there as Jen has said there is a huge amount of case law around this as to where people's faith interfere with or they feel that their their faith based rights are being interfered with by for example wider LGBT rights there's been cases of people who are not prepared to perform same sex marriages for example as a registrar and there's also been examples of where people haven't been able to demonstrate their faith in what they wear or any kind of jewellty or other adornments has been prescribed by their place of work for example so there's lots of these cases where there is seem to be this kind of clash of rights and there are mechanisms for dealing with that and I think with health professionals again it's probably best to ask health professional organisation with this but I know that they will be having to deal on a daily basis with people who have certain views because again the right to faith is also around thought as well those who may have for example racist views and don't want to be seen by a doctor of colour or other and the national health service will have procedures in place for something like that because I'm sure that unfortunately it happens far too regularly so there will be everyday examples of where health professionals do have to both be protected in their own rights but as has been said before where there still needs to be the delivery of sympathetic health systems and healthcare for people regardless of their views whether that is faith based or otherwise ideologically held views around who they're going to receive healthcare from I'd like to ask around the person of interest provision we've been hearing that there's quite some concern here of course a person of interest might be able to apply to the sheriff to have somebody's GRC revoked person of interest being a parent spouse or even a child and there has been concerns that this might be used in a malicious or an abusive way and in fact the children's commissioner was or did have concerns in regards to care experience children in particular and young people and I was just wondering what each of you thought of that can I start with Neomie thank you yes no we would definitely agree that we're slightly worried that this part of the bill is too widely drawn and we would like some specifics around who a person of interest would be so certainly the registrar general themselves and potentially also a current spouse or partner anyone else can then apply to the registrar general themselves and it's for them to decide whether to intervene in that case but as you say I think it's far too widely open at the moment for vexatious claims including by ex partners or other people who might have a particular emotional attachment to the case and problems with it so we would like that to be tightened up definitely thank you Jen I think I agree with Neomie it is both in our joint submissions and I would just add I suppose that as a matter of good drafting and new legislation you would ask us there a reason to take a different approach and if there isn't but there is a risk an unknown risk of how that provision will be used it's probably sensible to have either clear guidance or just a simpler clear approach as I understand that originally the intention was to continue a relatively narrow band of exemption in order to facilitate certain kinds of actions I think the other thing that was raised as well was that there is a broadening of the venue for this kind of action so it would move to the sheriff court as opposed to the court of session and I would just point out as a lawyer from an administrative justice point of view that is a different that is a different cohort of people that might be taking decisions it suggests that you be considering a larger volume of cases but again it would be worth having a bit more of a discussion about whether that's necessary or the reasoning of the thinking behind that Thank you, Sandy would you like to to come in? No, no, come in to Catherine Halt Thank you Thank you, panel Okay, thank you and Fulton MacGregor Thanks, convener Thanks to the panel for your evidence this morning stroke this afternoon crossed over the barrier I've got two equations and it's on the the provisions in the bill to live in the acquired gender for three months and then the three month reflection period as well so starting with the first one there we've heard some evidence already on committee that there should be no need for this three month period because people who are making this decision tend to have already been living and it's trying for some time and three months is therefore not required we also heard evidence from others including this morning that what would what would an acquired gender look like and that was on our first evidence session this morning so I think I should be finished our last evidence session on a point of consensual argument and I wonder if anybody would want to come in on that so that's a scene I owe me your nod and so I'll come to you for don't nod Yes, I'm happy to come in on this Yes, I think that this is a blessed area of consensus here is that I think that the three month period both before and after the application there's just no evidence it seems to be a very arbitrary time limit there's no evidence as to why it should be three months and not two months or you know six weeks or whatever that has been said in terms of the experience of trans people and certainly accessing trans healthcare can take unfortunately since the pandemic years as well to do that so this seems to be a very kind of arbitrary time limit and not much kind of reasonable evidence for bringing it in and similarly we would agree that living in an acquired gender isn't in itself very hard to evidence without there being a gender recognition certificate itself so people being able to change names and documentation and using that as evidence but also without resorting to stereotypes and various other avenues to prove that so yes it would just don't see the justification for it and as I mentioned briefly before this has been a criticism of the process within Denmark as well who have a similar six months waiting period and now the the kind of criticism being there just doesn't seem to be a justification for it and so since bringing and self ID they now want to their moves to try and remove that waiting period from that okay was it general your point to come in as well I mean I think I would agree with what Naomi has said which is that there doesn't seem to be a clear indication of why you would require this and I would go back to international best practice which really exhorts us to think about a model of self determination and one that's a simple administrative process so this is there is something here and the lived experience of our colleagues I have told us that in effect actually this that that this period of time makes makes little difference given the amount of time that people tend to think about going through this process anyway and on top of that I think as a matter of good law if there isn't evidence or a compelling reason that actually this time period achieves anything in particular it would be worth considering proceeding without great and do you have any thoughts on the the term acquired gender is that something that you want to make any comment on I know what Naomi did on the other side of the question I know Naomi you did touch on it but that was the three month reflection period as well so that's the bill provides a mandatory three month reflection period a requirement for the applicant to confirm at the end of that period if they wish to proceed again we've heard some quite strong evidence in that that that is is unnecessary and perhaps even derogatory so I wonder if you've got any thoughts on that I see it again it's Naomi if it's not in your head but I just wonder if Catherine or Sandy do want to come in on this if not it's okay though yeah I mean I would I would just kind of building on the points that Naomi made around the the lead in time the three month lead in time the reflection times also seems to be a kind of somewhat arbitrary number that's been arrived at that doesn't seem to be clear justification as to to why that that periods of time has been chosen for example and so I think from that point of view we're also concerned similarly that some of the the requirements would rely too heavily on gender stereotypes and certain behaviours et cetera so so we're we have a genuine question about what it would look like to prove that you've lived in your required gender for three months and three months reflection and then the final thing I would just say is that we are quite clear that you know a statutory declaration um under the threat of criminal penalties is a very serious undertaking and we don't think that people will enter into that lightly so to add on these additional time periods which you know add up to six months and you know seem to me to a certain degree and seem to us to to almost be defeating the purposes of this bill in terms of making things easier and we don't really see any great justification for their inclusion in Naomi, you're still wondering to come in um no just that I would agree with that I do think that these kind of time periods and um being asserted that this is a very big decision that people might change their mind on is quite patronising and does really undermine people's bodily autonomy and my mind automatically goes to where the removes to bring in waiting times for women to be able to access particularly reproductive services and that again comes from a very paternalistic point of view that women can't possibly make up their own mind about these kind of things so in terms of as has been said before concepts around bodily autonomy and protecting the rights of individuals then it's really for individuals to be making this decision themselves okay thank you that's convenient thank you and if could go to Rachel Hamilton please thank you convener the previous panel while I asked them a question it was mentioned about the CAS review which is obviously at its interim stage just now and they suggested that we've brought forward Hilary CAS to give evidence to the committee on the specific issue of children and young people the lack of routine and consistent data collection which means it's not possible to accurately track outcomes for children and young people and define those service sort of models and workforce needs that require a more sort of dignified approach to delivering those services I just wondered if you had any comment on whether you believe that this particular GRA form should be paused to until we hear evidence and to get the full report and to get their views because in this bill we haven't as I can see looked at and the data gathering and the implications that it may have that we haven't got that in Scotland so who would like to start Catherine by possibly yes I mean I think in terms of the comment that I would the comment that we would offer around that is that there is an enormous global body of research and work that has been done around the provision of services such as sectional reproductive rights and healthcare to young people and there is a huge body of reference points to make around concepts like evolving capacities and the autonomy of young people and I don't see how this particular consideration should be different from them or divorced from from that learning that is out there so I think that there is a lot that can be used and used across different arenas of for example healthcare or to ensure that young people are able to make decisions and have autonomy in line with their evolving capacities and I think those are very established standards in human rights and healthcare thank you for that Catherine would it be possible to reference and give the committee the detail of the particular international comparisons that you're looking at in terms of sexual and reproductive rights and how that crosses over with the cast review in itself for children and young people were you specifically mentioning something about education in Scotland or is this an international comparison that you were referencing? I was speaking more broadly in the broader concepts that have emerged from the Convention on the Rights of Child for example and those standards around provision and working with young people and young people's decision making I'm sorry to the panel not specifically Catherine but the question was based around delivering better services this is not about looking at sexual and reproductive rights and the education of children specifically but it's looking at gathering data so that we can provide a really good service and the workforce implications that may come from that Naomi I would say in general data collection is something that should always be improved it's a feature that we bring up in multiple different avenues around the need for better, more rigorous data within Scotland and for it to be disaggregated along lots of different lines so that is just standard and should be done we've all also already had the experience through the Census Bill and then ACT which was also judicially reviewed which looked at collecting data around trans statuses and again it looked at the fact that people do self-ID and then you can ask a supplementary question as to whether they're trans and be able to disaggregate from from the sex question those who identify as trans as well so I think that there are perfect ways that we can go about good and rigorous data collection that again have absolutely nothing to do with the gender recognition a certificate is very much to do with how people self-ID in and of themselves and in terms of kind of young people as well in general would refer to the evidence given by the Scottish Commissioner on Children and Young People as been mentioned around international concepts around evolving capacities and also how this fits within other laws within Scotland as well so we now already have young people 16 and 17 year olds making very adult decisions around how to vote around being able to get married the surgical being able to consent to surgical and other medical procedures and so it would make sense for this to be in line with the current framework that we have for 16 and 17 year olds I'm not sure if it's a good comparison because in the previous panel panel somebody mentioned about the age that you can have a tattoo but and also the census is not really providing the data that we need because 10% of the population haven't managed to fill in the survey but that would be a data collection problem rather than that there is a problem with the questions and how people do it so yes it is something that has always got to be improved upon but again would have nothing to do with the gender recognition certificate Jen, would you like to come in? Can I just repeat back what I think the question is? Yes so it's really about the interim cast report the previous panel suggested that we should be hearing from Dr. Hilary Cass because it has highlighted that there are issues with regarding to data collection and the consistent data collection and routine data collection which has an implication on workforce it has an implication on delivery of service and I wondered if you thought on agreed with them that actually the G.R.A reform should be paused in order for us to take into account that particular report when it is published I think yes no I do understand we did watch the previous panel as well I think I think the issue for me is that I'm struggling to understand the connection between reform of the gender recognition process as it stands and the evidence from that report I think as Naomi said it is really important I'm really keen that data collection improves and actually that we collect across a wider range of variables certainly if you monitor equalities and unequal impact across our services it's imperative that we get better at that I think also it's really important when we're thinking about what data can tell us to consider to consider whether we're conflating that with what this process does so again the data may tell us something about we need to be better here we need to restore something more widely there but I'm not sure that the reform that we're looking at here is informed by sort of a a backward looking piece of work that tells us how we got here does that makes it maybe you could explain a bit more I can explain I mean the report examines the increase in referrals of children and young people to gender identification gender identity services in England so it's specifically related to how if there's an increase and particularly that could be reflected in Scotland that those services were delivered in the right way and that we had the workforce to be able to deliver those so I think it is related Sandy would you like to come in I don't have anything to add okay thank you Maggie Chapman please thank you very much Joe just I've got a couple of additional questions if I may Jen and Naomi talking about capacity and cognitive development and the range of ages at which certain decisions are allowable or enabled we've heard in previous sessions and actually in some of the informal in private sessions when we talk to trans people themselves that some people under the age of 10 are very very clear that there is something that they feel that the expression of their own identities does not match with the binary world that they are forced to inhabit and that binary comes from a very very clear patriarchal system I'm wondering whether you could just say a little bit about whether there are things you think we should be considering in along the lines of reforming the gender recognition act that this bill that this bill that we're looking at does or more broadly around supporting people under the age of 16 who might have questions and might be having might be thinking about transitioning but not having the legal right to or other support to like Naomi I'll come to you first sure yes and again I think we would always refer to the young people that you were talking to and to to those organisations who are working directly with young people in how to best design those services so when thinking about protections for young people we think very much in terms of protecting them from others rather than also protecting their rights their rights to autonomy their rights to access information and to be properly supported through processes that they want to go through again I think it is probably worth looking at the way that this has been delivered by health professionals when we look at things like the agilic principle which is looking at young people being able to consent to medical procedures there is again a long case history to the development of that principle for those within the profession to be able to work with the young person to assess their capacity and capabilities to be able to properly consent and to give informed consent to whatever process or procedure that they're going through given that this will be an administrative system is to make sure that those people who then would be supporting a young person through getting a gender recognition certificate at 16 or 17 again have the appropriate competencies and training to be able to support a young person through that process as well but I would very much kind of defer to young people to be able to build that process together with the service providers Thanks Nomi, Jen Do you want to come in on this as well? I think for the second time I don't have a great deal to add other than to endorse what Naomi has said and also to point out that Bruce Adamson's evidence as well was kind of fulsome on this point and I think raised the important point that depending on when the bill goes through we'll also be looking at things like ensuring UNCRC rights as they're embedded in our services taken to account or the delivery of their services taken to account the provisions of this bill Thanks very much Jen I've got another question on a different topic that we've had some discussion today and previously around the criminal offences elements and Catherine in Jen's submission there's specific reference to trying to ensure that making a false declaration in the bill as currently proposed is a criminal offence like other statutory self declarations that that law already exists and in Jen's submission you expressed concern around criminalising people who choose to de-transition and I just wondered whether you could say a little bit more around that and how we can ensure that we aren't unintentionally criminalising people who take a decision that actually it turns out is the wrong decision further down the line Yep, sure Firstly it's worth seeing that I think that we are unclear as to why there's the creation of a duplicative criminal offence and we're quite concerned about the creation of that particularly and that it will be entirely directed towards an already very marginalised and discriminated against population so that's a concern for us With regards to de-transitioning I think that whilst it's extremely rare or it seems to be we do recognise it as a possibility so we want to make sure that those laws are not used against people who then choose to de-transition and I think what the specific considerations need to be I'm not entirely sure I couldn't go into huge detail around that but I do think that it's worth the committee considering whether a duplicative criminal law is needed and what safeguards can be built into the bill on the act to ensure that it's not used against people who do choose to de-transition in very limited circumstances is not understood in Thanks very much Naomi, I wonder if I could bring you in on this and whether Amnesty has examples or the evidence that you have from elsewhere where self ID is part of the gender identity process gender recognition process whether there have been significant numbers of people de-transitioning what the processes of support or the issues that we would need to take into consideration given that as Catherine says the numbers are very very small lower than the number of people who choose to get divorced or all of those kinds of things Absolutely and yes I mean it's very much the same we have looked into this and found very little if any evidence from the countries that we looked at that this is a significant problem because it is such a rare occurrence having said that still when developing a new law there should always be an avenue for a potential outcome even if it happens to one person within Scotland there needs to be a proper process for that happening whether that is reapplying for a different gender certificate whether that is voiding one or whatever but certainly to make sure to protect those individuals from any kind of prosecution under this I would echo what Catherine said about duplicating a law that already exists so we've already got the criminal law consolidation Scotland acts 1995 that can cover this and to bring in a duplicate law for a specific minoritise group within Scotland I think is highly problematic but yes although I think that this is very rare we found no significant evidence about it we still should have a mechanism for this should it ever arise okay thank you that's me okay thank you and Pam Duncan-Glancy please thank you for that I had a follow-up actually to ask the legal position then maybe I know that you'd said you were a lawyer and I saw I heard my colleague Rachel getting to the the knob of the the cash review and whether or not we should we should hear from Hilary Cass could you set out in your view the legal what in this legislation would relate to the cash review and why having a gender recognition certificate or not would then lead to a process of medical transition which is the increase in the cash review I think is is alluding to are you aware of any circumstances in which a gender recognition certificate is being used significantly in that process or not thank you for that question and and no I'm not and I think that's perhaps why I was struggling to connect the two pieces I think the implication was that somehow the other way around that somehow reforming legal gender recognition will have an impact on whether young people seek medical interventions in their treatment but I think the important thing about this reform is it's actually seeking to set apart a decision around any form of medical medicalization of medical treatment from the simple legal procedure of applying to change to change your birth certificate I think it's the clarity of that that we're actually seeking to divide these these two matters rather than conflate them that is sort of what I struggled with in understanding why we require that evidence I do you think that that evidence is important in other contexts but I don't see the connection here to the impact that this act could have thank you thank you that's helpful I had one further question on border issues of it's okay convener in the submissions that you've sent in you talk about the importance of ensuring refugees and asylum seekers can access the process are changes needed to the bill to ensure that this is the case or could the government provide further clarity and guidance on this and could the committee ask for that? thank you again for that really helpful question I I suppose I'm quite focused on the idea of ordinary residence is a legal term because I'm a particular interest in working with migration and people who have known British citizenship status in Scotland ordinary residence is used really different in really different parts of legislation and therefore it's important when you include it in a piece of legislation that you define what you mean specifically for that legislation and that is to it's not even to avoid unintended consequences it's just to make it really clear to everyone who is physically in Scotland whether or not this procedure is available to them that can be done in the primary legislation or it can be done by way of of policy and guidance but I think that a discussion should be had at the point of making primary legislation about what is the intention here and the reason we raise asylum seekers and refugees as opposed to other people who might be in Scotland for periods of time is because of the particular nature of their circumstance they will be here waiting for a decision from our government authorities and that's not within their hands it's not like we've looked at sort of students who come to study here and leave again they're able to control their residents themselves by making decisions and so we just want to make sure that we are not accidentally if you like locking people out of this process unintentionally for a period of time I don't have that answered your question Have any of the countries done it well or badly like if there anything you could say do it like this not like that? Yeah so in our in our evidence we provided I think the example of drafting from Malta which is one example we could certainly think about others but I also think it's really important that Scotland think about what's right for Scotland so we have shown leadership in terms of access to things like the right to vote almost near universal access to our health services this is absolutely the right approach so I think it would be consistent to just ask the honest question who did we intend to include here thank you okay thank you any further questions from members okay thanks thanks very much then that thanks to all the witnesses for coming along to the end for your forbearance before the start of the meeting that concludes the public part of a meeting will now move into private for the final items of our agenda thank you all very much