 Felly, we will now move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 7.3.1.2, in the name of Shona Robison, on gender recognition reform Scotland's bill. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons. I call on Shona Robison to speak to and move the motion up to 12 minutes, Cabinet Secretary. Stage 3 is the culmination of a six-year process of consultation and policy development that started with a commitment in the 2016 Fairer Scotland action plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and remove barriers to trans people obtaining legal recognition and accessing their human rights. That includes two of the largest consultations ever undertaken by the Scottish Government with over 30,000 responses in total. When I took over responsibility for this policy, I committed to listening to all views and seeking consensus where possible. I have met a wide range of organisations and individuals, both supportive and with concerns about the proposals. I know that the Equalities Committee did the same, and I want to thank them for their careful scrutiny of the bill, their considered stage 1 report and their work at stage 2 and since. I also want to express my deep gratitude to the parliamentary staff for their hard work throughout this process. I would also like to thank members from all parties who I have had productive discussions with throughout the passage of the bill, which led to agreement on constructive amendments. At stage 2, 47 amendments were agreed, 43 were not agreed and 60 were not moved. I did the same ahead of stage 3, undertaking a series of meetings with members and again agreed further amendments to strengthen the bill. I have commented at every stage about the importance of the tone of this discussion and remain grateful to members who have maintained a respectful tone even when differing views are genuinely held. Finally, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Scottish Government staff, including my private office staff, but in particular I want to thank the small but dedicated team who have worked tirelessly on this bill. I also want to say a particularly big thanks to the Parliament staff for their long shift over the last two nights. I am grateful to them all. They deserve a very happy Christmas and a much needed break. Never has so much been said about so few. The Gender Recognition Reform Scotland Bill reforms the process that has been in place for 18 years for trans men and women to obtain Agenda Recognition Certificate or GRC. Like the Marriage and Civil Partnerships Scotland Act 2014, this is an important step toward creating a more equal Scotland, where LGBT people are valued, included and empowered. The bill provides a new and improved route to legal recognition for Scotland, but of course the existing process will continue to be available across the whole of the UK. This bill does not remove the ability of someone living in Scotland to apply under the existing GRC process, as it will apply in law in the rest of the UK once the bill provisions come into force, as the requirements in the 2004 act are not restrictive based on where you are living. If the UK Government chooses not to recognise GRC's issues in Scotland, it will be particularly important that the existing system remains open to those in Scotland. For example, someone with an English birth certificate living in Scotland must have a route to be able to update that birth certificate in line with their acquired gender. I hope that the UK Government does not choose to take that step. If we are repealing parts of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the schedule, does that not have the effect of removing that access that she is talking about? Cabinet Secretary? No, though both routes will be open to people once this legislation is enacted. Following her visit to the UK, the commissioner for human rights of the Council of Europe commented in her report published two weeks ago that she had observed the emergence of an increasingly harsh political and public discourse against trans people in the UK and expressed concerns about narratives that represent trans people as a threat to others. That, I hope, will change. It is regrettable that some of the discussion and some of the media coverage relating to this bill has focused so little on the reforms and the positive impact for trans people in Scotland. We know from extensive consultation, as well as from the evidence heard at stage 1, that the current system can have an adverse impact due to the requirement for a medical diagnosis and an intrusive and lengthy process. These barriers prevent many trans people from applying for a GRC. We know that, of an estimated half a million trans people in the UK, only around 6,000 have ever been able to obtain a GRC in the last 18 years that the current system has been in place. This bill will make the process more respectful of the privacy and dignity of trans men and women. It makes no change to the effect of a GRC, which will remain as it has been for the past 18 years. Legal gender recognition mostly affects aspects of our private lives and would enable a trans person to obtain an updated birth certificate. That will benefit trans people at important moments throughout their lives, such as having consistent documentation when they start a new job, enabling them to marry in the gender in which they live, and, importantly, having their death recorded in the gender in which they lived. While the bill will make it easier for trans people to access their existing rights and to go about their lives confidently that they are recognised under the law, it will continue to be a substantial and significant legal process that is reflected in the requirement to make a statutory declaration. It is a criminal offence to knowingly make a false statutory declaration or to knowingly make a false application. Those safeguards have been strengthened during the parliamentary passage of the bill in the creation of a statutory aggravator, where the circumstances of the offence are connected to fraudulently obtaining a GRC and a proportionate and risk-based approach to applications from those charged or convicted with certain offences based on assessment and management of risk in individual cases. I know that some continue to have concerns about the potential impact on women and girls. I have listened carefully to those who have expressed those concerns. I understand their route because I know from my own experience and from many years of working to improve women's rights that women and girls still face inequality and an increased risk of harm in Scotland today and over the world women are fighting to keep their hard-won reproductive rights from being eroded often by powerful men. That is why this Government does so much to tackle violence against women and girls from abusive creditory and controlling men. That is why we prioritise the work of the equally safe strategy, the delivery of which has resulted in changes in legislation through the Domestic Abuse Scotland Act 2020, criminalising coercive control, increasing funding to front-line services and a drive towards prevention. I will take your intervention briefly. If the Government has the rights and protections of women and girls at heart, why have so many of your SNP colleagues on the back benches broken the whip? I think that members of all parties have differing views. I could ask the member why some of her own party do not agree with her position on this bill. People have listened to the arguments and have come to their own conclusions on these matters. I have also stated clearly that the bill does not change public policy around the provision of single sex spaces and services. We support the provision of single sex services and are clear, and I always have been, that all organisations need to take account of the Equality Act and ensure that everyone's rights are protected. The 2010 Equality Act is not modified in any way by the bill, and I supported the agreed amendment that puts that beyond doubt on the face of the bill. I have done my best to allay anxieties, but I know that for some their opposition to the reforms will not change based on what I say. I hope that the words of the UN independent expert who has spent years researching those issues will give further assurance. He said that there is no credible evidence supporting the submission that requirements currently in place in Scotland for legal gender recognition are effective or efficacious safeguards to prevent sexual or gender-based violence or that those requirements are even remotely connected to it. Trans rights are not in competition with women's rights, and, as so often before, we can improve things for everyone when those discriminated against act as allies, not opponents. The point that the cabinet secretary just made, and I am grateful to her for giving way, as it currently stands under the Equalities Act that a trans person can be excluded from a single sex based on the basis that they are transgender and, therefore, essentially on the basis of their physical difference. For the record, could you just clarify, because I think that it is important for those who do because it says that she retreats explicitly, that that will continue to be the case after the passage of this act? As I have said so many times, and I am grateful to the member for the opportunity to put on the record once again, those exceptions under the Equalities Act 2010 remain and trans women can be excluded from those spaces if it is proportionate and in line with the guidance and legislation contained within the 2010 act. I cannot be any clearer on that and I hope that that gives the member the reassurance that he is looking for. To conclude, I want to repeat that this bill represents an important moment for trans people in Scotland. It addresses the deficiencies of the current system for legal recognition, which are not in line with international best practice and which place disproportionate barriers in the way of trans people accessing their human rights. I am very grateful to the minister for giving way and for bringing forward this bill to reform legal gender recognition for trans men and women, but we must also recognise that there are trans people who identify as non-binary as neither men or women, so I am seeking a commitment from the minister that further work into non-binary recognition will be carried out by the Scottish Government this parliamentary session. As we said at stage 2, further work is under way. This bill is a further step towards making Scotland a more inclusive and fair society where LGBT people feel safe, respected and included. I want to end with personal testimony from someone, if that is okay, Presiding Officer. This is from someone who gave evidence to the committee. I have known who I am since I was a child and I have tried several times to apply for a GRC, but each time I did not have what was needed. I could not afford it the first time, the second time I did not have the proof. Then my partner had a stroke, we wanted to marry, we were together for 20 years but could not do it because I did not have a GRC. He died in 2013 and I lost everything. I had no legal right to everything that we had built up together, including his pension. If the process in this bill had been in place then it would have allowed me to just be ordinary, which is all we ever wanted. Presiding Officer, let me end by saying every party in this chamber except one made a clear commitment to the reforms set out in this bill at the last Scottish election and at the one before that it was all parties. Members from all parties in this chamber voted to support the general principles of the bill at stage 1. At this final stage I urge all members to vote in favour of these important reforms and for the bill and I move the motion in my name. I now call on Rachel Hamilton. Thank you Presiding Officer and can I echo the words of the cabinet secretary and put on record my thanks to all the parliamentary staff and the very hardworking bill team. Presiding Officer, it is with regret that I believe that this bill has shown this Parliament at its worst. The debate over this bill has been sorely missing compromise by the government for women across Scotland. The government has not sought to achieve consensus nor has it made a serious attempt to bring people together. Women have real fears on the consequences of this bill and they have been ignored. The First Minister has dismissed justified and legitimate concerns as not valid. I want to begin by taking the opposite approach, a focus initially on where we can mostly agree. I can endorse much of what the government and MSPs across this chamber say when it comes to improving the process for trans people. I believe in the principle that nobody in society should suffer because of who they are and that everyone should be free to go about their lives as they please within the scope of the law. The administrative process of changing gender should be simple for trans people. It shouldn't be overly intrusive, burdensome or indeed in any way demeaning. On those points, I am sure that a majority of the Scottish public would agree, but they do not agree with the reforms in this bill. The public are not on the side with these changes. A clear majority are against this legislation, as shown in recent polls. Nicola Sturgeon has not bought the people of Scotland with her. In the rush to make the process a little easier for trans people, the Government is making it easier for criminal men to attack women. That is the problem here. I am very grateful to Rachael Hamilton for taking my intervention. Does she agree that the amendments that I took forward at stage 3 actually mean that men on the sexual offences register are risk-assessed so that they cannot apply for a GRC? Does that have the effect that Russell Finlay wanted to have in stage 2? I do not agree that Gillian Martin's amendments go far enough and that they should have been more robust. This Parliament should have voted for Michelle Thompson's amendments supported by my colleague Russell Finlay to ensure that we do not allow sex offenders to get in the single sex spaces of women. On the back to the public, they do not agree with the reforms in this bill. The public are not on the side with these changes. In the rush to make the process a little easier for trans people, the Government is making it easier for criminal men to attack women. That is the problem that I am trying to identify with Gillian Martin. Clearly, this Parliament is split on that. The bill makes it farce easier to obtain a gender recognition certificate, but it does not just do that for trans people, it does that for violent males, too. It will let criminals exploit the system that puts women at risk in all kinds of places, but it especially endangers women at shelters for victims of domestic and sexual abuse. Not at the moment. I would like to make a little bit of progress, thank you. The UN Special Rapporteur Reem Osalem raised many serious concerns about this bill. She was right in saying that this bill is a threat to women in all their diversity. As she said and made clear, dangerous men are a threat not only to biological women, but to trans women, too. Today, the Scottish Conservatives are not just talking about protecting women's safety, we are talking about protecting everyone's safety. Society as a whole is at risk from this bill. While most of us across Scotland are good, decent and reasonable people, rapists are not, sex offenders are not, it is ignorant in the extreme to believe that they will not take advantage of loopholes that are ripe for exploitation. As JK Rowling wrote recently, nobody but the very naive can fail to be aware that predatory men are capable of going to great lengths to gain access to victims. These legitimate worries cannot be dismissed as scaremongering. That is an insult to every survivor of sexual assault and domestic abuse. Women don't have a phobia of trans people, we have a phobia of violent men. Nobody needs to be scaremongering over the appalling levels of violence that women face. There is no need for exaggeration. Violence Gates women is the unfortunate harsh reality of our society. I want to ask every MSP here today how can we allow a bill to pass that risks the safety of women in Scotland. This Parliament has to think about the message that it sends to young women. Young women, like my daughters, the warm words recited in this chamber about women's rights are spoken often, but I am no longer sure that they are meant. My colleague Russell Finlay's amendment to prevent those on sex offenders register from obtaining a GRC was shamefully voted down by a very small majority, not just now, thank you Sue Weber. We have been shown countless times by those giving evidence that predatory sex offenders will exploit Nicola Sturgeon's gender self-id experiment. This amendment would have no impact on trans people but would simply protect the lives of women across Scotland from violent sexual offenders. How would MSPs around me today vote against that? It is indefensible. However, through this process, while Scottish Conservative MSPs have worked constructively with MSPs of all parties to try and improve this bill, this coalition Government has not engaged in good faith. Yes, I will take an intervention. I thank the member for taking my intervention. It is on that point because the member was on the committee with me. I wonder why the Conservatives have not tried to put out what we heard on the committee, which I am sure you agree, was that overwhelming evidence that some of the concerns that you are raising have not came to fruition elsewhere. Why have you not tried to show the public that the evidence that we heard was overwhelming? I am glad to say that I very much respect my colleague Fulton McGregor. We sit in committee together, and we work very collegially together. Fulton McGregor does not recognise that there are media reports that are suggesting that people are getting access into single sex spaces, particularly in places like prisons, and we did hear that. Through this process, I have said that we have worked constructively. No, thank you, Emerotic. It has been railroaded through this Parliament and the debate has been shut down. The process, in my opinion, has been a complete sham. The evidence taken by the committee was limited. The range of experts called on was narrow and selective. It is unbelievable in this democracy that we have only heard evidence from the UN expert on violence against women and girls on Monday night, hours before the bill was debated in Parliament. The timetable for debate in scrutiny has been far too short. I wonder if the member is aware that key human rights and women's organisations have written to Reem Alsalam expressing support for the bill and highlighting that they themselves were not consulted before her letter. They were Amnesty International Scotland and Genderdress rights Scotland, Scottish Women's Rights Centre, Scottish Women's Aid and Rights Crisis Scotland. Do you think that it would have been better for them to have also been consulted by the UN rapporteur? Well, thank you. Reem Alsalam is the UN special rapporteur for violence against women and girls. Did you read the letter from all the women's organisations talking very concernedly about the Scottish Government's bill? We rapidly debated difficult amendments that deserve proper consideration. There has been no good explanation of why this legislation must pass in 2022, three days before Christmas, when we could spend 2023 fixing its flaws. The result is a sub-par shoddy piece of legislation that is not fit to pass into law. I know that you are asking me to conclude, but this bill will be a legacy issue for the First Minister, but not in the way she hopes, because J.K. Rowling, Joanne Lamont and Ash Ragan will not be wished, and women will not be wished. This Government has not listed that our voices will be heard. I want to open by paying tribute to all the people we have engaged with throughout this process. And to our committee clerks and Parliament staff who have supported us and the cleaners, catering and security staff who have put in quite the shift to facilitate us being here so late this week to debate this legislation. I became an MSP because I wanted to change people's lives. Today is one of those rare moments as an MSP where we all have a real opportunity to improve lives and directly tackle inequality. Presiding Officer, being recognised for who you are without suspicion is hard. Being expected to rely on medical interference where it isn't needed or wanted to somehow prove who you are, who you know you are is demeaning and hurtful, and requiring someone else who doesn't even know you to confirm your identity as bulletling. The pressure to conform to a society that doesn't quite understand your experience is hard. It's exhausting. It means you second guess your instincts. You worry that people think you shouldn't be how you are or get what you get. You feel a need to justify who you are in a way that people that don't share your characteristics don't have to. As a disabled person, I am only too familiar with this world and that experience. I guess that's why I've always felt a connection with trans people's desire to be recognised for who they are and for the current process for doing that to be reformed, for society to accept them and to support them to be their best self without barriers, additional costs or medicalisation. Presiding Officer, the thing about stigma and discrimination is that the characteristics of it are almost always the same. Regardless of your characteristics as a disabled person, an older person, a woman, a person of colour, a lesbian, a gay person or a trans person, you're held back, you're questioned, you lose out, you earn less, people treat you differently. You internalise this, you agonise over every microaggression and, ultimately, it eats away at your sense of self and purpose and potential. That's why I believe strongly that the reform that we will vote for today has been a long time coming and why changing the current onerous, lengthy and invasive process of legal gender recognition has always been so important to me. The current system is outdated and out of touch with the progressive Scotland way in to be. It forces trans people to endure trauma and intrusion just to have their gender recognised in law. I have said many times throughout the scrutiny of this bill that I believe the drawn out process, the delays by the Scottish Government in bringing it forward and its failure to provide strong leadership necessary to quash misconceptions and allay fears has led to a vacuum that has allowed fear and ignorance to prosper. It has led to a debate that has framed the rights of trans people as a threat to the rights of women and created a toxic environment that has let down both causes and brought hurt and upset to those who spend their lives fighting for both of them. We're here having this discussion because there is a clear injustice and we have the power to fix it. That is what devolution is for. In all the evidence I have heard and I have heard a lot of it, it has been clear to me that too many trans people fail the current process for being recognised in law as the gender they identify with is not possible. The current system is so bad that too often trans people are forced to leave themselves open to discrimination in all aspects of their life, facing constant fear of being outed, treated differently because of their identity documents that are not consistent in their lived experience. That is why I have been so keen to make sure that this legislation is the best that it can be. I cannot understate the importance of getting that right. It has to do what it says on the tin, tear down some of the most disproportionate barriers that are denying trans people the dignity of being recognised for who they are. It's why we on these benches have spent so much time scrutinising it and why we have done so thoroughly. I'll take the intervention. Liam Kerr. I absolutely echo the point that the legislation needs to be as good as it can be, but yesterday Jackie Baillie, Pauline McNeill, Carol Mock and Daniel Johnson articulated some very clear concerns and shortcomings in the drafting of the legislation. Those were not addressed during the amending stage, so can the member help me to understand why she will vote for a bill that her colleagues believe to be so flawed in its drafting? I thank the member for that intervention and I was expecting such an intervention. I will come on to that at the moment. We have recognised that concerns exist on single sex spaces, on age, on the potential abuse of the process and we have spent hours looking at the evidence in detail, debating the arguments coming up with solutions. We've met with representatives of trans people, women and young people, human rights experts, gender identity experts, data experts, member of parliaments in other countries that have legislated on this, academics, faith leaders, people with lived experience of transition and de-transition, sporting bodies, legal experts, campaign groups and individuals across the entire spectrum of the bill. We've listened to concerns and sought the best possible evidence available to us on all of them. In areas where we think that the bill needed improved, such as on the collection of robust data, the clarity of statutory declarations, clarification on the primacy of the equality act and the protection of single sex spaces, the importance of supporting guidance and inclusion of asylum seekers, protections against vexatious allegations, reviews of the impact of the new system, we laid amendments and we worked with others across the chamber to secure improvements to the bill, to ensure that today, as we move to vote on it in its final form, we are able to vote to deliver the change that trans people need and deserve, ensuring their dignity and recognition in law, whilst also ensuring the process is one that the public can have confidence in. Presiding Officer, trans people have always been waiting, have been waiting far too long for these changes. They deserve nothing less than good legislation that allows them to be recognised for who they are. That's why Scottish Labour were determined to ensure the bill did just that, to ensure that it meets its objectives and delivers the change needed. Trans rights are human rights. They're inalynable, indivisible and interdependent. Human rights are our rights not because we're women or trans or gay or disabled or black, but because we're human and a society and a Parliament have a legal obligation to uphold them. For trans people being recognised in law, for who you are, it's fundamental to this. In committee and throughout my equality and human rights campaigning, I have heard and I am in no doubt that the process to do this is dehumanising, intrusive, offensive, expensive and lengthy and must change. I and Scottish Labour will therefore be voting for this bill today. We have always been at the forefront of equality and human rights and we will always defend and protect them. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I rise for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. At decision time today, I and my party will as one vote for the gender recognition reform bill to pass into the laws of this country. It was a commitment we made in our election manifestos for both of the past two Holyrood elections. It honours our party policy made by our membership at our conference and it is the right thing to do. We support reform because we believe that the prolonged, intrusive and medicalised approach currently in place causes trauma to trans people who just simply want to have their gender recognised on the documents that they are required to hold. Ultimately, the decision about somebody's identity should lie with that person and not a panel of strangers that they have never met. Presiding Officer, we are not pioneers in these reforms. Over 350 million people now live in countries where gender recognition is obtained through a process of self-id. They are following international best practices laid out both by the Council of Europe and by the United Nations. Opponents to reform express real concern over access to single-sex spaces and women's safety. I want to address that directly. Violence against women is a matter of huge importance both to me and to my party. That is why I established a commission on men's violence at our conference in October. I am clear that no provision around the changes of gender recognition in the bill creates a new or additional threat to women. Put simply, making it easier to obtain a gender recognition certificate does not change who can or is likely to access single-sex spaces. Presiding Officer, no single-sex or protected space currently requires the presentation of a gender recognition certificate or a birth certificate for entry. Indeed, neither is seen as valid forms of ID. Instead, trained staff will undertake a dynamic risk assessment as to whether it is appropriate to grant admission to that person. That goes for prisons as well. Nothing in the provisions that we passed today will change that. In the many countries that have gone before us, there is no evidential base of the abuse of the gender recognition systems in those countries by predatory men, nor have those countries sought to repeal that legislation. Indeed, in Ireland, where that reform has been in place for the past seven years, ministers have the power to revoke a certificate if information comes to light that would have barred the holder from obtaining one in the first place. No certificate has ever been revoked. Additionally, those reforms are not about the age at which young people can surgically transition or the administration of puberty blockers. That is certainly an important and live debate, but it is not this debate. If we credit 16-year-olds with the mental capacity to make many life-changing decisions in our society, including marriage and armed service, then we should trust them and credit them with the mental capacity to understand who they are and to seek to have that identity recognised in the documents that we as this Parliament and as the Government require them to possess. That law has been a long time coming. The original work behind the scrutiny of the legislation began sometime before the pandemic. It was a commitment made by most of the parties in this chamber seven years ago. It has taken longer to transit Parliament than any legislation that I can remember. To those who say that we have rushed this, that it is being rammed through, we have not, and you are wrong, far from it. In many ways, I am very frustrated by this delay, not least because it has stalled reform, but it has also allowed a good deal of heat and hate to enter our considerations. I am heart saddened by this. It has divided families, communities and political parties. My party has no exception. I am aware that there are members of the Scottish Liberal Democrats who are not persuaded by the need for these reforms and will be struggling with the position of our parliamentary party today. I want to say to them that I am a lived dem in large part because we are a plurality. This discussion will continue. Of that, there is no doubt. While our party policy on gender recognition and support for the trans and non-binary community is clear and established by our membership, that does not mean that I will turn away or shut down those who still have questions and concerns. I wish that I could offer comfort and reassurance to those who fear the reforms that we have passed today. I believe that, in time, that comfort and reassurance will come. I am confident in the monitoring that we have built into this legislation that, over time, we will build an evidential base that will help to dispel that fear in its entirety. Today, we bring the reforms that are blinking into the light. We write a wrong that has existed in our statute books for nearly 20 years, and today, we offer a new route to trans people who wish to have their gender recognised in the documents that underpin the legal architecture of their lives. It is a route that is finally free from trauma, and it is one that is steeped in dignity. We will now move to the open debate. I call Joe Fitzpatrick to be followed by Brian Whittle. It is a huge honour to speak in this debate, and I will be supporting this important bill, which seeks to remove unnecessary and disproportionate barriers to legal recognition and will help to transform the lives of many trans people. At the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, we heard that those who applied for a GRC found the existing process to be upsetting and invasive. As the cabinet secretary said, we also know that many people choose not to seek a GRC at all due to the concerns about the onerous nature of the existing process. One witness told us that they were put off by the process, concerned about the costs and evidence requirements and worried about having to out themselves to a panel of doctors and lawyers who had never met them. Vic Valentine of the Scottish Trans Alliance described the requirements to provide a gender dysphoria diagnosis as pathologising and stigmatising. We also heard that the existing process takes years. It is backward, a bureaucratic nightmare and unnecessarily traumatising for trans people. I have been inundated with correspondence asking me to support the bill, which is unsurprising considering Glasgow Kelvin is such a rich intersectional and diverse constituency. Would the member agree with me that those of us who do not understand the experience of gender incongrens should listen to those who do and that streamlining the process of obtaining a GRC will help to create a kinder system that treats people with dignity and the autonomy that they deserve, allowing them to enjoy their life as their whole, authentic self? I thank Co-Cab Stewart for her intervention. I do think that in this whole debate, if Scotland comes out of today being a little bit kinder than that would be a really good step forward. However, the points that she made about the existing process are absolutely too. One of our witnesses put it to us and some of that was really difficult for committee members to listen to to hear the trauma that people were having to put up with. One of the witnesses put it to us that the panel's purpose was unnecessary and bureaucratic. They said that I can validate my own identity quite rightly so that I know who I am and they know who they are. That is one of the reasons why we need to be kinder and accept people. We also heard about the damaging effects of not being able to obtain a GRC under the current process. The cabinet secretary quoted one of the most powerful testimonies that we heard during our stage 1 deliberation, so it is not surprising that it will maybe appear in more than a couple of contributions today. However, that witness, who I will remind you, was not able to marry her partner before they died losing their pension rights and putting their home at risk, told us that it was like being given a life sentence without committing a crime, that they feel constantly under attack. Things are really difficult for trans people, and they concluded by saying that their reforms are badly needed. We asked them then what we could do, what might make a difference in the proposals that we are considering today are in place. They told us that it would have allowed me just to be ordinary, which is all we ever wanted. I thank us all. Monica Lennon. I am grateful to Jovis Patrick for giving way. He is making some really important points. I want to just pick out one email for a few seconds. One constituent who is a trans woman wrote to me and said, quote, I hope that the day my death certificate is eventually issued comes in the far future, but when it does, I want it to be accurate of how I live my life and of who I am. She went on to say, she wants trans people to get married with pride and to be able to rest in peace and to finally stop being the target of a manufactured culture war now. I make this point because we do not have any trans people sitting in these seats in the chamber, perhaps some in the gallery, but does the minister agree with those remarks from my constituent and hopefully one day we will have trans people sitting in this chamber voting on rights in legislation that affect them directly? Before I call Mr Fitzpatrick a trans woman, I just would say to members that we do not actually have a lot of time in hand. Interventions should therefore be brief and absorbed within the member's time. Mr Fitzpatrick. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think the points that the member makes, which the minister will reflect on at the end, are really important. When we hear about those really important times in your life, the idea of not being able to marry as yourself and the pain of having to think about being buried as someone else. Oh my goodness. How could you not want to fix that so that people can live their lives, marry at those most happy times and the saddest times and be themselves? Presiding Officer, it is not just this Parliament. We have heard from the SHRC, from the Valker Turk, the UN High Commissioner, from the Council for Europe Minister, Human Rights, Dunja Mitrovic that this is the correct way to go forward. I see time is closing. In closing, I have sought to set out in their own words the considerable challenges faced by trans people under the current GRC process and the ways in which that process is failing to provide trans people with the dignity and privacy that they are entitled to in accordance with their human rights, rights that others will take for granted. Victor Madrigal Burlawz, the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity put it well when he set out our responsibility to uphold human rights for all. He said, mentioned as we made of trans rights, but there is no such thing as trans rights or gay rights or lesbian rights. There are human rights of people who are gay, human rights of people who are lesbian and human rights of people who are trans. This bill will remove unnecessary and disproportionate barriers to the legal gender recognition and will help to transform the lives of many trans people. That is why I will be supporting the bill today. I now call Brian Whittle, who is joining us remotely, followed by Karen Adam. I would say that in accordance with the request from the Scottish Conservatives, time has been allocated in accordance with the request, so Mr Whittle, up to four minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to make it clear that my opposition of this bill is not opposition of trans rights. Amendments were never about restricting any trans rights, they were about preventing predatory mails from exploiting badly drafted law, a point disgracefully conflated by some members in the debate. As members of this parliament, we have a responsibility to make good law. We have a responsibility to anticipate the consequences of the changes we impart in society. We have the responsibility to protect the rights of all we serve. You cannot claim to be making Scotland more equal by pushing forward with legislation that risks putting the rights of one group above those of another. Laws do not exist in a vacuum, independent of one another, but that is the fantasy in which many of the Scottish Government's justifications for their approach is based. Passing a law that makes it substantially faster and less difficult to change gender is certain to have wider implications across society, and those implications we should try and at least understand them before we pass the law, but time and again we have been told by the SNP and the Greens and others that this is not the case. More willingly, not only are these concerns dismissed, those expressing them have found themselves ostracised, castigated and condemned for harming them. From the very start of this process, the First Minister has told us that she would listen to those with concerns. I think sadly her actions and words suggest she leads a Government with selective hearing, but why should we expect anything else from the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon, a First Minister who will happily say she detests me and everything I stand for because of the party of which I am a member, without having so much as a five-minute conversation about my views? All views are welcome in Scotland until Nicola Sturgeon decides that they aren't. The Parliament is supposed to be a place of debate, and debate means sometimes having your views challenged and answering difficult questions, because by thinking about those questions we gain greater understanding and work to build consensus. Deputy Presiding Officer, throughout this process I have listened. I have listened to the stories of trans people failed by the system who have experienced enormous personal struggles just to be who they are. I have listened to the campaign groups desperate for reform and those with concerns. I have listened to the women's group to fear the erosion of their hard-won rights and recognition. I have listened to female athletes worried about what they might no longer have a level playing field in which to compete. I have listened to coaches in Scotland and around the world working with trans athletes and intersex women. I have listened to mental health professionals, medics, lawyers and so many others who all have their own ideas, views and suggestions. In all those conversations, not once did I encounter hatred or fear of trans people, nor anyone with a desire to deny them the human rights that we all share. What I did here was genuine concern for the wider implications and possible unintended consequences of the proposal. That is what I sought to highlight in my address, but sadly with little success. My efforts to amend this legislation and my opposition to the bill in its current form are not born of malice but of frustration. We cannot create equality by inadvertently creating inequality elsewhere in our society. Inequality has caused harm and this bill is drafted while harm women, girls and trans people are like. Members across this chamber have raised many logical and real-life examples backed by experts in their field of consequences of this bill, and we must pay attention. I leave my fellow members with a quote by Oliver Einstein. Blind belief in authority is the enemy of truth. Having blind faith in anyone is dangerous. Passing legislation on the basis of, trust me, I am the First Minister cannot and should not be how this Parliament addresses the challenges that we face. Deputy Presiding Officer, today I will not blindly follow the First Minister nor her Government when they say that this legislation will not cause harm to trans people, women and girls. I cannot support the bill as it is written, Deputy Presiding Officer. I now call Karen Adams to be followed by Paul O'Kane up to six minutes, please, Ms Adam. First, I must say that it is an absolute honour and a privilege to be standing in the chamber today on the cusp of making history. I am failing to overcome with pride at the opportunity that has been afforded to me. I hope that I can do justice to a very small but incredibly important piece of legislation for a very small but incredibly important group of people. The most regrettable thing, as we discussed this legislation, is that we have no out-trans people in the chamber having their say on this, but instead having to put their faith in people with their unique lived experience to represent them as they watch from the galleries and at home. I hope that what I have done in this Parliament and on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee has given reassurance to trans people that there are many out there who do care, and that we are the majority. I know that, as a woman, I would feel an injustice at my rights being debated without representation, and that is why I have ensured that trans people's voices have been heard throughout this debate from the start. Recently, I hosted an open meeting, a trans living library in the Scottish Parliament, where I invited very special guests to attend and openly engage with members from across the chamber, so that they could help to shape legislation for themselves and truly have their voice heard within those walls, and also where MSPs could drop in and informally chat with trans people about their lives and to gain an understanding as to what we as parliamentarians can do to improve their lives. That was a prime opportunity to learn about trans people directly from trans people. Ross was one of those special guests. He is my dear friend. You may be aware that Ross is a trans man. I met outside Parliament when we held this stage 2 debate. I had written my speech only the night before, where I used Ross's life experience as an example. It was an accidental meeting, and perhaps, as some suggested, the stars did align. I have kept in contact with him, and I would ask my colleagues to please go and watch his video on YouTube, where he talks openly about his experience of conversion practices. In this, he talks about how he endured electro-convulsive therapy. Ross transitioned at the age of 60, after knowing that he was a trans man for decades. He is now 68 and still doesn't have a GRC, because he states, I do not want to have to go through a process like that again, so when it comes to gender recognition and getting a GRC, I am not going to do that to myself under the current system. I am not again going to take the risk of having to present my case. To some people, in this case people, I have never met who do not know what it is like, what my life has been like. I am not going to give them that power to decide who I am. We are not asking for very much, we are just asking to be normal human beings. That is it, really. Trans people have long existed. They are not a product of society, mental health problems or neurodiverse conditions. They are because they are just as we are. They are a valid part of the LGBT community who strive to remove stigma and be accepted without harm in society, to be afforded opportunities like us without prejudice. This is what this bill is for. That is what this bill can help to achieve, to simply make a process to obtain a birth certificate that corresponds with who they are. A right that should be easy to access without the interference of anyone else, just as we have that right, to enter employment without being exposed, to go on to further education with the comfort that you are recognised for who you are, to have a fundamental right to whole autonomy. That is what we are doing here today. I welcome this bill and I hope that when our children and our children look back through the history books that they can see in Scotland in 2022, we decided to join many other countries in best practice to support our most marginalised, that we advocated the rights of our LGBT community and that we made Scotland that little bit better to live in and that little bit more equal. We either get on board with progression or we get out of the way. I was elected to make people's lives better, and that is exactly what I am doing here today. I welcome this bill and I will wholeheartedly be voting for it. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate as we reach the concluding stage of the gender recognition reform bill. Before starting my substantive contribution, I would like to join colleagues in putting on record my thanks to you, the other Deputy Presiding Officer and the Presiding Officer, and indeed all the staff of this Parliament who have worked tirelessly throughout the drafting, scrutinising and amendment of this legislation. It is true to state that, without their commitment and endeavour through long hours, we as members of this Parliament would not have been able to debate and vote on this piece of legislation today, so its contribution is greatly appreciated by me and I know that we have already heard from colleagues across the chamber in that regard. I want to begin today if I may commenting on the tone and tenor of our stage 3 debate thus far, as we have thought to scrutinise and consider the final stage of this legislation. In my stage 1 contribution, I made comment on the wider debate in Scotland over many years, which has all too often been too toxic to angry with a lack of space to find respectful disagreement. For the most part, our debate in this place has been conducted in a vein of respect and, indeed, often respectful disagreement, and I am grateful to many colleagues for that, both in this chamber and in private. However, I was dismayed last night at points in our debate to hear contributions from members, which I found to fall short of the basic standards of respect that we would all expect, particularly the respect that should be afforded to some of the most marginalised in our society. Indeed, I fully appreciate that watching some of those contributions will have been hard for many trans people who have seen their lives discussed and poured over in a way that has often seemed technical and detached from the very human reality of this debate. As a gay man, I have also found some of that and, indeed, the rhetoric over the wider debate is reminiscent of things that I have had to listen to all of my life and find deeply offensive. I also find some of the discussions around faith last night difficult, particularly as a person of faith, and we need to recognise that no one person has a monopoly on faith or belief due to one particular strand of opinion. As I said at stage 1, this is about respecting the humanity and dignity of everyone, and as I said in the summation of my amendments on Tuesday night, there have been contributions from colleagues where we may fundamentally disagree, but they have been sincerely held and I respectfully offered, and I do want to meet those colleagues with that respect, and I do hope that we will all reflect on all of this as we move forward. Presiding Officer, since the beginning of this debate, I have supported reforming the process to obtain a gender recognition certificate, to de-mediclise and simplify the process in line with the commitments that were made in the manifesto that I stood on for an election to this Parliament. However, I have sought, with my colleagues on the benches, to scrutinise the legislation and to change it to make improvements that could command confidence of both trans people and the wider public. The bill has changed, if you could just let me make some progress. The bill has changed by colleagues on this side of the chamber, placing their quality act in the face of the bill, adding to the legislative obligations of the Government to carry out robust data collection and reviews of the bill's implementation, so that its impact can be assessed and understood. As we have heard already, amendments from Gillian Martin supported by Jamie Greene, which has allowed a pause to an individual's GRC application of their subject of sexual harm prevention order or sexual offences order. I will take Liam Kerr. I am very grateful. On that exact point, I asked Pam Duncan-Glancy earlier on why she supports what her colleagues yesterday said was so fundamentally flawed. She responded, as I think the member is, that there were amendments proposed by Labour to make this better, but all significant amendments, including Jackie Baillie's 127 and 130, fell yesterday. So why is this member voting for something that his own colleagues believe to be so flawed? I thank you for Mr Kerr's intervention. I will let Jackie Baillie and others speak for themselves. I have outlined the changes that I have seen in the bill, which I do not think are insignificant, as he described them. I am disappointed by that characterisation. Indeed, colleagues will speak for themselves, and it is up to colleagues to explain their own views. Returning to the point about Gillian Martin and Jamie Greene's amendment, I want to reiterate once again for the avoidance of doubt, the Scottish Labour R of the View that there is absolutely no link at all between sexual predators and the trans community. I think that it is important to once again put that on the record. The bill has also changed to extend the time period for the application of 16 and 17-year-olds and to introduce requirements to seek support for young applicants. I understand and respect that there are people who do not believe that that goes far enough in terms of the changes that I have just referred to or who fundamentally disagree and believe that legislation should not proceed at all. I think that that is why it is crucial that monitoring reporting amendments secured by Jackie Baillie and others, along with commitments to guidance by the cabinet secretary, are extremely important. However, I do believe that, in its essence, the bill is about improving a life of trans people by reforming the outdated system for obtaining a new GRC, a system that is degrading and not fit for puppets. I believe that the bill will deliver on the principal objective of delivering a simplified, demedicalised process for trans people to legally change the agenda. As a gay man, I know what it feels like to be different, to not understand why, and to be frightened that you will never be understood or accepted. I know what it feels like to be told that you are going through a phase or that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. I know what it feels like to be mocked and bullied because of who you are. I grew up in the Catholic faith, a faith in which I remain in a village in the west of Scotland and my teenage years were not easy having to continually come out as gay. I know that colleagues have heard me speak about this before in the chamber, but, shaped by that experience, leads me to know most acutely that our identity is precious. It is fundamental to who we are. There is nothing that hurts more than someone querying consistently who you are or demonising you for who you are. I know that the bill will have a positive impact on the life of trans people, the length and breadth of Scotland. I am conscious of time— I am conscious of time, Presiding Officer, and I will conclude on this point. Trans people are not sick, they are not ill and they are not confused. There are people who deserve to have their identity recorded in law, enabling them to live their life fully, and I support that end today. Thank you, Mr Cain. I now call Pam Gozel to be followed by Michael Chapman up to four minutes, please, Ms Gozel. I have been sitting on this committee since we began taking evidence on this bill. I have heard, seen and felt first hand that impact this bill is already having on women. As I have said many times, good legislation is about balance. No legislation should curb the rights of one group to the enjoyment of others, but this bill does exactly that. While improvements to the process of gender recognition would be beneficial for trans people, it cannot be at the expense of women and girls, vulnerable individuals and children who require the protection of the law. Those rights are now in peril on the cusp of being eroded in Scotland. There has been a lot said about the lack of scrutiny that this bill has received during its passage through Parliament, but it says that, as members of the Equality and Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, we are still taking evidence on the day before stage 3 of the bill was due to begin. That was followed by the decision to try and push through over 150 amendments across two sitting days. That is no way to legislate. That process has not only brought shame on this Parliament, but it is an affront to democracy. It is no secret that I disagree with the key principles of this bill, such as lowering of the age, the removal of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the removal of the gender recognition panel. However, I oppose it with the best intentions. Time and time again, the Scottish Government asked those in opposition to the bill, where is the evidence? Is women raising concerns not evidence enough? Is the United Nations special repertoire with mandate on violence against women raising concerns not enough? So far, as the Scottish Government is concerned, clearly not. It is clear from the Scottish Government's dismissal of women's groups on the way that this bill has been railroaded through the Parliament that none of the concerns raised about the safety of women and children were ever going to be taken into consideration. While pleading that there is no evidence of self-id, being abused or self-id having a wider impact, it rejected many amendments that seek to collect, monitor and review accurate data to evaluate whether that is the case or not. As Parliament agents, we have received thousands of emails, cards and cries for help from women, girls, parents and religious groups, but those have undoubtedly fallen on deaf ears of our ideologically driven SNP green government. So much so that this Government could not even bring themselves to support an amendment that would prevent sex offenders from obtaining a GRC. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I stand here today with a heavy heart. I am disappointed in the parliamentary process and the Parliament itself, which has made a mockery of democracy on Tuesday evening. I urge all members to reflect on the countless constructive amendments that have been brought forward in good faith only to be voted down regardless. I urge members to vote against their bill that betrays the rights of one group to the convenience of another. I ask members to consider whether they want to be remembered as someone who threw caution to the wind when it came to save spaces for women and girls, who opened single sex spaces up to abuse by predatory males and who gave sex offenders the right to change their gender based on self-declaration over the safety of women and girls. If you do not want to be remembered like that, I suggest that you vote against the Gendered Recognition Reform Bill at stage 3, as I will definitely be voting against this flawed and shoddy legislation. I want to begin by thanking all those who have made today possible, all those who have engaged in the consultations and scrutiny processes, my committee colleagues and all in this place MSPs and staff who have contributed to this important legislation. Mostly, I want to thank trans people who have put up with delay, abuse, loss and grief. Today is for you. I stand here this afternoon with a multitude of mixed feelings of relief, anticipation, frustration and sorrow. Sorrow that the six years of work on this bill are due to work undergone most of all by trans people themselves has taken place in an increasingly toxic environment, a miasma of intensifying myths about this bill, about gender recognition, about wider aspects of trans people's lives and about the motivations of those of us who stand in solidarity and love as their unshakable allies. Many of these myths are not only mistaken but entirely irrelevant to the bill before us today. A gender recognition certificate is not a route to medical transition nor vice versa. They are entirely separate processes. Indeed, demedicalisation is a key principle of this bill, so there is no place for those conspiracy theories of big pharma, of child mutilation. They are not only so bitally ironic in the context of trans healthcare under investment multi-year waiting lists, but they are also false in both outline and detail, deliberately disseminated to mislead and muddy the waters. I stand in frustration at the gaps in this legislation, gaps that our best endeavours have not yet been able to fill. Sex is not, as some would like to imagine, binary and immutable. That is why, as soon as possible, I and the Scottish Greens are determined to see comprehensive gender recognition for non-binary people in Scotland. You are not forgotten. There is a second gap, those under 16, for whom formal gender recognition would both be appropriate and beneficial. I will continue to work for this for trans children everywhere. I am saddened that the amendments that I tabled at stage 2 were not supported, those on the removal of waiting times and of the new criminal offence of making a false declaration, those clarifying and limiting the power of third parties to seek revocation of AGRC and providing penalties where those applications are malicious or vexatious. I am disappointed because those represent international best practice and, most importantly, the needs and experiences of trans people themselves, whose voices have not been sufficiently heard above the clamour of noisy opposition. I am deeply unhappy that, despite resisting the most horrendous amendments this week, the bill now includes provisions that I can only describe as dog whistles. Such messages in legislation can never make for good law, for they both create and legitimise the context of hate and fear in which heart-breakingly trans people are obliged to live. There is nothing new here. Every time that a group of marginalised people comes close to achieving their rights emerges from the fog of condescension and ridicule through which they have previously been seen, the same story is told—the story about the need to protect women and children, especially girls, from some new and insidious threat. It has never been true, and we look back with collective shame at the way that our society has been duped by it. In exactly the same way, we will look back at this moral panic with deep regret. The myths being spread about this bill follow those old patterns with depressing precision, yet we are far from the first country to carry out this reform, which applies to populations of many hundreds of millions, and nowhere that has gone before has experienced any of the scenarios hinted at by the bill's opponents. That is no surprise, because those scenarios simply do not make any sense. Women and girls are indeed vulnerable to predatory attack, as trans women know better than most, but no potential attacker needs a GRC to play their power games. Our society is based on self-identification. From the time we are born until the time we die, we or someone on our behalf tells the world who we are, where we live, what we earn, what name, what faith, what national identity we recognise as our own. There are penalties for untruths just as in this legislation, but the fundamental understanding is that we each, better than anyone else, know who we are. Finally, those long years have shown that there is no bright line between people who claim to support trans rights but in practice oppose every step towards them and those who view all trans people as fraudulent or at best deluded. In the spectrum of trans myths, the most extreme provide a kind of invisible ballast for the mainstream, but they are still myths, still toxic, still untrue. As the great feminist Judith Butler has written of this movement, they assemble and launch incendiary claims to defeat us by any rhetorical means necessary. In closing, I too want to bring the words of a trans person to this chamber. We've spent many hours talking about trans people. Let's hear them. It's a scary world for trans people at the moment. My family were initially supportive, but we moved my mum to live nearer to us recently and realised that she is now a turf. It's a sign of things going on in the rest of the world. She talks about how trans people are predatory and are going to toilets to commit sexual assaults. I remember the repeal of section 28, and this is what it feels like. We are demonised by society and are portrayed as threats. People with loud voices on social media and mainstream media are saying that we want this to sexually assault people. There is so much very loud hate and demonisation, but we are people. So, Presiding Officer, we will not be defeated, not today, not in the months and years to come. We have a choice now to stand in the miasma of schemongering myth or to step into the sunlight with our trans siblings. I choose to step into that sunlight and vote for this bill. I feel confident in saying that everyone who participated in the debate from the most ardent bill supporter, through the doubtful, to those fervently opposed, can all expect the same fate. Regrettably, to be met by at least some level of abuse afterwards from some quarter or another. In many respects, this is testament to all of our collective failure from government to the low list of backbenchers to ensure that this issue is managed with the mutual respect and seriousness that it deserves. There are far too many people, even among selected representatives who felt unable to participate in discussions because of its toxic nature. Edwin Morgan wrote in his poem at the reopening of the Scottish Parliament, and he said, what do the people want of this place? They want it to be filled with thinking persons. I wonder how he would view the quality of discourse around this issue. The other day, in speaking to my amendment, I revealed some personal effects the debate has had in me. But today I want to set that to one side and reflect more broadly. I am not going to debate detail that time is past. If there is one lesson, I hope that we can all learn from this debate, however, is that Edwin Morgan's remark is truer than ever, and we all need the humility to admit that we have some distance yet to travel. I fear that this bill has missed an opportunity. There are elements of it that would have brought us all together in making life easier, making society more welcome for trans people and more respectful of the rights of women. But instead, the bill has created battlegrounds where none needed to exist. I have had a long professional interest in matters of change. What are some of the basic lessons that we can learn from experience and research? We know that significant change often fails and that, in around 70 per cent of cases, that failure occurs because people are not collectively taken on a journey, a failure to respect a wide variety of views, a failure to listen and a failure to truly empathetically engage are symptomatic of the types of behaviours that contribute. I have seen some of those failings in this debate. There are many issues that have been raised over recent days. In my case, I have been concerned to raise mental health and trauma issues among some women that I fear have not been treated seriously enough, let alone understood. Others have raised concerns around the interface with the 2010 Equalities Act. Some have raised concerns about safe spaces for women and of the consequences of giving legitimacy to a self-id approach. It does not matter now whether I agree or disagree with some of those observations. For me, what they have highlighted is that we have had a less and perfect approach to the entirety of the legislative process. When that occurs, it undermines trust in the perception of us, all of us, legislating fairly and effectively. There is, of course, in all of this, raw politics. Too often, small minorities, both inside and outside of Parliament, have been afforded significantly too much influence at the expense of the ordinary citizens of Scotland. There is a fear among some that we are in a dangerous path for democracy if we fall under what Professor Elizabeth David Barrett has called state capture. That is where small groups of the strongly driven, rather, capture political debate and discourse at the expense of the people we are all here to serve. We all need to be aware of the motivations of those who seek to influence us. My belief that, in approaching the politics of this, is requiring the dark arts of the whips was wrong. If, from the very outset, all of the political parties in this Parliament had agreed that this is precisely the type of issue that is redolent of ethics and fundamental rights, where it should have been dealt with as a matter of conscience rather than whipped, we would have got a much more open and healthy debate. Flowing from that, we would have got a better legislative process and bill. As it stands, however, the late recognition of different views, the resultant legislative journey and a final bill that will, regrettably, bring out some unintended consequences. Arguably, court action means that, as a matter of conscience, I regret that this time I cannot vote in favour. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Let me say clearly and unequivocally, I clearly believe that trans people are real. I believe that their identity is fundamental and essential to their being. I believe that people's fundamental identities deserve to be recognised freely and without caveat and without condition. I think that that is important, largely because I just really like to reflect the comments made by my colleague Paul O'Kane, because sometimes when we are discussing things in this Parliament we have to do things that test and challenge legislation, that probe and examine its effects. However, when we are doing that and learning legislation, which is dealing with those fundamental and essential issues of people's sense of understanding of themselves, that can be incredibly difficult to hear and listen to. I understand that, and it is a conversation that I had with constituents, and I just really wanted to reflect that. I am going to raise some of the concerns that I have later on, and I do so with that very much in mind. However, let me also be very clear that I think that this is an important bit of legislation. It is an important change. It is one that Labour had in its manifesto and one that I will be supporting at decision time, because ultimately we need to recognise people's identities. We also need to recognise most fundamentally in this legislation that there is a limit to what medicine can provide for us. There is no magic window into people's brains in their heads or their understandings that psychiatrists provide, and believe me, I have some experience about interactions with psychiatrists. Ultimately, all they do is ask you about your experience and your understanding. If that is what is important, if that is what determines your identity and that is what I believe, let us believe the people themselves. Let us trust them. By all means, let us have a process that ensures that it is robust, that those declarations and those understandings are sincere and authentic, but let us believe people. Ultimately, that is how progress has arrived at. I fundamentally believe that progressive politics at its heart is about recognising the perspective and experience of individuals and protecting those. It is about understanding that certain groups may be marginalised and that they should be supported and protected. That is what this bill fundamentally does, and that is why I will be supporting at decision time. Let us also be clear on some things. Gender is absolutely fundamental society. It is the one physical characteristic that we do record legally that has practically nothing else in terms of our physical beings. However, it is also important that there is a reason why we do that. Ultimately, we may believe that gender identity is about one's experience, understanding and sense of self. We also need to note that there are some fundamentals of biology, but maleness predicts certain patterns of behaviour. That is why we have to proceed with certain degrees of caution. Where are some of my concerns from? I would like to address some of the concerns addressed directly about safe spaces and the safety of women and girls, because I think that this is fundamental in terms of my decision-making around this, because it is hugely important. We need to recognise that this bill does change things, both in terms of the numbers of people who may be seeking GRCs, but also the criteria that we are employing. Self-ideas are change, and we are entrenching it along. That is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Fundamentally, the complexity that arises from it is not a bad thing, it is a good thing, because people are complicated. However, it will require the decision-making to become much more nuanced. My concern is that those protections in the Equalities Act will be in very narrow circumstances, but when they operate, they are hugely important. I believe that we have those protections. I am pleased that we got the Equalities Act on the face of the bill. I would have liked to have seen that go further, but most fundamentally, I thank the cabinet secretary for both stage 2 and again in chamber today, that those protections, that trans women can be excluded on the basis of the transgender from safe places, is an important clarification. Let us be very mindful about the sensitivity of that, but it is important, and that will continue to operate. I am happy to take the intervention. The member will note these at 4 minutes 38. I will try and be brief. My understanding from Lady Haldane's ruling is that a male-bodied man with a GRC is a woman, not a trans woman. From that, how do you then take the safe space issue? Does he agree with me on that? Misunderstanding is what the practical effect of the Equalities Act and the legal structure exists, because the practical effect is that a male-bodied person can be excluded, but we exclude them on the basis that they are transgender. I admit that, as you explain it, it is convoluted, but it is how things operate right now. Haldane's judgment in my understanding does not change that, but here is where the challenge is. I wish that the Government had gone further, because that is in the sense that the legal mechanism runs counterintuitive to the practical understanding. We need that clarification, both for trans people and for people born into the gender that they are comfortable with, that we have clarity about how and when we can employ those things. That is why I sought guidance. I do not think that that would have made the bill incompetent. I think that that would have made this a better bill. It would mean that I could support this bill in an unqualified way. Unfortunately, I am supporting in a qualified way, because I think that there is much more work for the Government to do to provide that confidence and understanding. Ultimately, rights are nothing if people do not understand what their rights are and do not have the confidence to uphold them, both for trans people but also for the people that may be seeking protection. Bearing in my time, I will close there, but I will be supporting the bill at this time. I hope that to those who are constantly seeking to challenge members on this side, I have spoken for myself when you understand that, and maybe you can let my colleagues speak for themselves too. Thank you, Mr Johnson. I now call Tess White to be followed by Emma Roddick up to four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you for allowing an additional speaker today. Presiding Officer, I have spent many years helping organisations to improve inclusion in the workplace. It is part of my DNA. I have made sure that, in my job, that everyone, whether they are female, male, gay, transitioning or with a disability, is physically and psychologically safe at work. As an HR director and now as a legislator, the safety of others is my priority. But in recent months I have been inundated with emails from people who are not just skeptical about these plans. They are deeply, deeply worried. They know this legislation is not just simply the process to get a piece of paper. They know this bill makes it easier for people to legally change their sex and that it opens the door to single-sex spaces to an undefined group of people. Women and girls are not victims, but they are victimised. This is not about a competition of rights. It is about creating the right conditions for the coexistence of those rights. This bill simply does not do that. We have been told by the SNP that there is no need to press pause on the bill and examine the implications of a major intervention by the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, or last week's court ruling on the definition of a woman. Scrutiny and debate only matter to the SNP when it suits them. It is shameful. The sad truth, Presiding Officer, is that the passage of this bill has shattered my confidence in our democratic institutions. Women's organisations were an afterthought prior to the introduction of the bill. Every party, save the Scottish Conservatives, is whipping the vote. At stage 1 this week, a handful of SNP MSPs broke ranks, and they should be applauded for doing so. It was a much needed departure from the aut authoritarian ideologs who preside over this SNP green government. But to those MSPs on the Labour and SNP benches who fear the reproaches from their party whips or their careers more than the repercussions of this bill for women and girls, there is still time to choose courage over cowardice. Collectiveism should not trump your conscience. My amendments yesterday would have at least placed the duty on ministers to report on the bill's impact on women and girls who risk being collateral damage in the SNP green government's single-minded pursuit of self-id. Something else is happening, an insidious creep which started with women being branded as bigots and transphobes for raising concerns over their rights and safety. A few weeks ago, women wearing suffragette scarves were told to remove them or leave the parliamentary committee scrutinising this legislation in Scotland's own seat of democracy. Last week, women were prevented from assembling in an academic institution to discuss the issues arising in the documentary Adult Human Female. Their right to freedom of speech not just curtailed, but cut off completely. On Tuesday night, law-abiding women were threatened with arrest as they observed the proceedings from the Scottish Parliament's public gallery. Presiding Officer, it won't end there. As the parliamentary passage of this bill reaches its conclusion, I still believe the intent behind the bill was good, but it remains the case for me that the unintended consequence for women, for girls and for young people will be far greater from the age of application to access to single sex spaces, to safeguards against sex offenders exploiting the system. There are still massive question marks over the safety of the operation of the bill. For those reasons, I cannot support it at decision time. I do not understand being trans because I am cisgender. I also do not understand being straight, gay or a man because I am not. You do not have to understand how a person comes to realise that they are trans, to respect that they know their own mind, their own body and their own truth, and to accept that they are also ordinary, normal people. I have struggled with this debate not just because it has been going on for about a quarter of my life and recently been a source of sleep deprivation, but because we are constantly told that it has been respectful. Many people have asked legitimate questions that they genuinely do not know the answer to and many have contributed to a better understanding of trans lives, but others have not been respectful. Folk have crossed the line from respectful questions into blatant transphobia calling transwomen men, transmen women and denying that anyone can be non-binary. When experts have told us that the political discourse in the UK right now is contributing to an increase in trans hate crime, it is not the time for folk to pat themselves on the back for managing to say horrible things in a polite tone. Max, a non-binary person that I recently met through LGBT youth, really summed it up for me when they said that throughout this debate opinions have been stated as fact and facts dismissed as opinions. This bill does not affect the Equality Act. A GRC does not grant you access to any toilet in the world. If you are unsure about that, try and remember the last time you were asked to produce a birth certificate before you entered one. I, a survivor, have had the words, rape apologist, screamed at me this week. As a survivor, I understand fear. I understand being scared of men and I can imagine that if I were not involved in politics, if I didn't have trans friends, and I heard people in authority saying that sex offenders were being given all-access passes to my hospital bed, my toilet and my bedroom, I would be frightened too, but we have to leave this in the past because it is not a fair representation of what this bill does. I know how much work the Equalities Committee has put into this bill and I was glad to be able to take part in two of their evidence sessions, two of the 13 or so that took place. An incredible amount of detail went into producing this bill, which will bring in what is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly insignificant administrative improvement. The bill affects so few people, the trans population, and most of them will tell you that this change affects an even smaller percentage because not everyone wants a GRC and many who do do not want it to say male or female. What has affected more people is the harmful debate that has surrounded this. That is not just harm trans people, it has harmed a lot of cisgender women because people have been told by their MSPs, by celebrities, that this bill affects things that it does not, and that they should be scared of it. Young people have also taken a fair bit of criticism. I heard at least three colleagues stand up in this chamber this week and talk about how people under 25 have unformed brains. Young people accused of not knowing their own minds and not being able to decide what is right for them, but young trans people are strong. They have had to be. They may have mental health issues, they may struggle with their identity, they might cry when they hear MSPs debate their future, but they have the strength, the courage and the absolute fierceness to say, I am trans in this climate. This is who I am, and they have probably known it for a very long time. I am very grateful for Emma Roddick giving way on that point. Does she agree with me that young people in Scotland can develop, grow and mature with a scaffolding of support around them rather than criticism? We should, in this place and indeed in Scotland, seek to build that so that our young people can make choices that they are supported in and do so on the odd occasion that it is wrong to be supported in that as well. Emma Roddick? Absolutely, and I think that going forward having that support and having these options available to young people will allow space for that to happen. I knew Max's reflection on this debate was so good I was going to have to talk about it, but I also know that Highlands and Islands voices are so often not heard, so I asked fellow members of Highland Pride if anyone had thoughts they wanted to share with me. I want to thank Rachel and her daughter for speaking to me and sharing their fantastic speech from Murray Pride. Rachel said of her daughter when she was wee, when she asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would immediately reply to say, I want to be a girl. Rachel supported her child. She knew that she was going to be judged as a parent, but she wanted her kid to be happy. And she was. Rachel shared that her teacher at the time said that he expected the change of name, the change of clothes, but not the change of personality. She immediately became happier and more confident. Sadly, the discrimination, hatred and bullying that she then faced knocked that confidence back down, but I hope that we can do better by trans people in future. When someone changes their gender and becomes more confident as a result, we should rally around them for as long as it takes for that hatred to become a thing of the past. We should support them, protect them and celebrate them as Rachel does her daughter. This debate really should have been a small one one afternoon that not many folk cared about and wasn't all that controversial. It still feels surreal that it has been the way it has. When this bill is finally passed and the world doesn't burn, that should mean a positive change in the discourse around so many related issues, ending conversion therapy, improving trans access to healthcare, particularly for rural and island communities, and recognition of non-binary identities. Today is a small change, but a big step, so let's do what every party promised to in 2016 and get this bill done. Thank you, Ms Roddick. I now call Jamie Greene up to three minutes, please, Mr Greene. As a Conservative, I believe in the fundamental human freedoms of liberty, freedom of expression and of gender equality for all people, a human right that lifts us all up. Those are the words of Sue, Sue is a GRC holder and Sue is an approved candidate for the Conservative party in the next general election. Sue is in the gallery behind me and I welcome her here to this place. Let me say, last Friday my party issued a press release calling on MSPs to stand up and be counted over GRR. Well, this is me standing up and this is me being counted. Don't get me wrong, colleagues. The LGBT community is often anything but a community. As a right-of-centre gay politician, I often get more abuse from paradoxically named allies than I do from those who disapprove of my so-called lifestyle, as one constituent put it to me this week. But I do not look at them in the mirror in the morning. Neither the haters nor the disapprovers, I look at myself. If I were to vote against this bill to reform gender recognition, then I must look people like Sue in the eye and explain why. That is only fair. You must do the same. Just as I must explain to those who oppose this bill, my position, a responsibility I have never shied away from. I have considered every point of view, every argument, every amendment, one by one by one, because making good law is our collective responsibility. Whatever our views on the morality of its content—and that is a responsibility I take deeply, seriously today, more than anything I have ever done in this place—I have played my part in all of this with integrity, with grit and respect, doing what I think is best, and I believe that others have done the same, even if I disagree with their end position. I am grateful to my party for allowing me a free vote on this, but a free vote does not always mean a free voice, and I thank the chair for allowing me to speak today. This is politics, after all, and let me tell you about mine. The conservative movement that I joined is at the very heart and soul of why Sue joined it, too. The party that says that Government should not tell you how to live your life. The party that introduced gay marriage in Westminster against vociferous opposition, often from within its own benches. The party that unapologetically flies a rainbow flag above Downs Street, the Foreign Office and every British Embassy the world over. The party that once committed to gender recognition reform and ending conversion therapy. The party whose one-time Prime Minister said that being transgender is not an illness. The party that leads popular opinion, not follows it, that is my party, and that is why I will support this bill. The world changes. The world changes, and during the course of that change, we too can change, as lawmakers, as colleagues, as friends and as people. I know that tomorrow, when I wake, I have to look myself in the mirror. I know that one day, perhaps in the long and distant future, I will reflect upon the events of this week, and I will know that I chose the side of history that I believed to be right. The side of history which made another human being's life better. All I say in closing is this, and I say to all members, before you vote on this bill today, I simply ask you to quietly pause and ask yourself will you be able to do the same? Thank you, Mr Greene. I now call Jackie Baillie to wind up on behalf of Scottish Labour. Up to six minutes please, Ms Baillie. Rookie era, Presiding Officer, I do apologise. Let me start by echoing the words of many members across the chamber in thanking the Government and Parliament's legislation teams, all parliamentary staff who have had to work long hours to facilitate the passage of this bill and, of course, all of you as Presiding Officers who have had a fair shift to put in. This bill has been a long time coming, six years of consultation and hours of parliamentary debate. With a few others in this chamber, I have been in this Parliament for a long time. It does mean that I have a relatively long institutional memory. I have sat through, as others have, hundreds of pieces of legislation, negotiated hundreds of amendments, so let me reflect briefly on the process before turning to the substance of the bill. I regret to say that I think that the Government could have done more to address the concerns expressed particularly from women, they could have allayed fears, they could have provided reassurance and clarity and ensured that the integrity of the bill was protected. This bill is rightly about improving the rights of trans people, but there has been a vacuum of political leadership that has allowed the debate to be dominated by division and distrust instead of openness and discussion. I also have to say, very gently as I can, that the filibustering tactics of the Tories have been entirely counterproductive. I would much rather have used the hours wasted on points of order in actually debating the substance of the bill. There is a place for points of order, Presiding Officer, of course there is a place for points of order, but not when it removes debating time. Let me turn to the substance of the bill. I understand that obtaining a gender recognition certificate can be lengthy, overmedicalised and a traumatic process that is undignified and disrespectful. Paul O'Cain, Jamie Greene, Pam Duncan Glancy made powerful contributions that captured this well. That is why Scottish Labour supports reform of the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 with the Gender Recognition Reform Bill before us, as set out in the Scottish Labour manifesto. Scottish Labour has taken seriously our role as legislators and our responsibility to ensure that all discussions surrounding the bill were well informed and conducted in a considerate manner. That is why throughout the progress of this bill we have reached out, we have listened to the views of all those with an interest or concern about this legislation. When we supported the bill at stage 1, we were clear that significant improvements were needed if it was to have the public's confidence and through our efforts and indeed other colleagues across the chamber, that legislation is in a much stronger place than it was when first introduced. At stage 2, we placed the primacy of the Equality Act on the face of the bill, which we sought to strengthen at stage 3. That makes clear that nothing in the bill stops the provisions of the Equality Act being applied. Our support, of course, I will. Rachel Hamilton I disagree that making sure that legislation is robust and that it wasn't filibustering, but it was on that point, it was on the removal of the section 15a since Lady Heldain's judgment, Jackie Baillie. Do you not believe that that amendment that Pam Duncan-Glancy put down is ineffective? Jackie Baillie We have been through and rehearsed all those issues in great detail during the amendment stage. The cabinet secretary has today and yesterday made abundantly clear that those provisions, those provisions, actually still apply. I listened carefully to her, those words are on the record, that matters very importantly to the Equality Act continuing to apply in Scotland. Now let me say to you that at stage 2 we placed that primacy of the Equality Act on the face of the bill. It was important to us to do so because nothing in the bill stops the provisions of the Equality Act being applied. Our support also helped to add safeguards into the bill to prevent the new application process being abused by bad faith actors. Labour introduced the 2010 Equality Act, which rightly protects both women and trans people from discrimination. We understand that some people have concerns about the impact of the bill and the potential unintended consequences for women's rights, in particular the protection of single sex services. That is why we fought to establish that those protections enshrined in the Equality Act were on the face of the bill. Scottish Labour tabled various amendments emphasising the protections and provisions within the 2010 Equality Act, explicitly stating that those would not in any way be altered by reforms of the GRR. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for confirming that the provisions of the Equality Act apply in full both yesterday and today in her comments to this chamber. We also tabled amendments around the need to ensure that young people had the capacity to understand the implications of applying for a GRC, to guard against any forms of coercion of young people, and to ensure that they were provided additional support and safeguards. Importantly, we also, with the support of the Government, put a robust monitoring and review process on the face of the bill to ensure that we considered the impact and operation of the legislation. Again, that was about providing reassurance. Scottish Labour has a long and proud history of supporting campaigning and legislating for the rights of all. We campaigned against and repealed section 28. We introduced the 1998 Human Rights Act and the 2010 Equality Act. Labour is the party of equality. We have always fought against prejudice and sought to build a society in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Trans people's rights are human rights and they must be treated with the same dignity and respect as everybody else. Scottish Labour will be voting to support the bill at stage 3. I want to begin by sincerely thanking the parliamentary staff for working long anti-social hours at short notice in this Christmas week, not least those who don't get extra pay but actually time off in Llew. I respect others here, and I may not agree with me as I do not agree with them. The past 48 hours have made our views abundantly clear. Many of today's contributions have been thoughtful, passionate and sincerely held. Today I really want to use the precious few minutes I have to say what needs to be said and give voice to people who I believe have not been heard. I will not be able to take interventions today and do so knowing that the cabinet secretary will have the last word and can address anything that I say here today. This SNP Government wants today to be a moment of history for trans rights. It may well achieve historical recognition but I believe for all the wrong reasons. Today is not a victory for those who view themselves as progressive, it is the opposite. Gender recognition reform bill is regressive. The gender recognition reform bill poses a threat to women and girls and I make no apology for saying that. Saying that is not transphobic, as Tess White said. This is not a competition of rights. When the bill passes, I will not go home and tell my daughter that I am proud of what happened here today. I will tell her that the Parliament let her down and let down other women across Scotland. The SNP are defying the views of the vast majority of Scots. That is being railroaded through with selective regard for evidence and little regard for women's concerns. The bill does not fully consider the consequences for vulnerable young people or single sex spaces. The SNP says that this does not mention sport or prisons, it will therefore have no bearing on them. I believe that that is fanciful. Public bodies such as the prison service and the taxpayer funded sports quangels will inevitably be influenced by such major legislation as this. The cabinet secretary dismissed concerns about women's sports, which were so passionately raised by Brian Whittle, who really does know his subject. If a man presents a new GRC, whether to play sports or in custody, it is naive to pretend that it will somehow be inconsequential. Then there are the ramifications that it will have on other parts of the United Kingdom. I am sorry, but I do not have the time to do so. What weight will a new Scottish GRC have in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Will the bill, as the former First Minister Jack McConnell suggests, turn Scotland into a magnet for sexual predators? What challenges will Scottish GRCs cause for UK-wide bodies such as the passport office? I am sorry, but I do not have the time. What about the interconnection between public bodies with distinct national and regional identities such as the police, the prisons and the NHS? Our scrutiny of the bill has barely even touched those profound questions. Absolutely mind-boggling and frankly it is a conflict bonanza for lawyers. One of the most obscene aspects of the SNP's bill is that it opens the door to predatory men to pretend to be trans. Let me state this again very clearly so that the SNP and others do not deliberately misinterpret it. The problem is dangerous men not trans people. Sorry, Keith Brown is saying, I know what you mean. That is exactly the conflation that I am talking about. It is disrespectful and it is disgraceful. The problem is dangerous men just as sex tree, not trans people. Mr Russell, let us ensure that we hear members. I tried to address some of this, but my amendments to ban sex offenders from changing gender were shot down using vague legal excuses. Those in the sex offenders register should not be able to acquire a GRC. The Government only even acknowledged any risk as a direct result of Scottish Conservative efforts, but it is instead choosing to impose a complicated process that will be open to interpretation, judgment and inevitably mistakes, a system that will place even more work on our courts and hard pressed police officers. Police Scotland appears to have become a dumping ground for SNP, back-of-the-fag-packet legislation, fireworks, short-term lets and now GRRs. There are already almost 5,000 registered sex offenders in Scotland. Mistakes are being made today. People are being hurt. The system is already at breaking point. I was also scunnered when the Government voted against Michelle Thomson's amendment, which I supported. I have already explained that I am unable to do so because of the time. This would have stopped anyone charged with rape or other sex crimes from applying for a GRC until the trial ended. It would have prevented the nightmare scenario of forcing, by law, a female rape victim to call her male body to attack her a woman. Rudi Dynlock KC, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, said that, and I quote, I can conceive of no sensible basis upon which this amendment might be rejected, yet our joint amendment did fail by one single vote. As Michelle Thomson so potently put it, this bill puts the rights of a man charged with rape above the rights of his victim. Is this really acceptable? The Parliament seems to think that sex offenders are trustworthy. To someone in this chamber, I say, wake up as a journalist who has spent decades reporting on someone's society's most dangerous and deviant men. Those men abuse, corrupt, manipulate and exploit any process or any system to gain an advantage. Today, everyone is a loser. Sex offenders have a novel new way to pray in women. Women and girls are less safe. Our overworked police and backlog courts will have to treat predatory men as women. Worst of all, loving parents of children confused about their feelings and identity risk losing their agency to state ideology. The way in which this has been done will confirm some of the worst assumptions of the public of politicians detached from reality and out of touch with what happens out there in the real world. That debate has come to mirror Scottish politics today. Polarised, bitter, ideology, trumping logic, intolerance, silencing and good sense—for Scotland's sake—I hope that this rotten Government will pay a price for its hubris and arrogance. I would like to thank members who have contributed to the debate. There have been some very powerful contributions and, in the main, with some exceptions, the tone has been appropriate and respectful. I would like to reflect on some of the points that have been raised today. I was very moved by Joe Fitzpatrick and Monica Lennon's contribution. I think that Joe Fitzpatrick talked about the key times in someone's life when this is going to matter and the challenging journey for so many trans people. Can Adam, in describing Russ's experience, want to just be a normal human being now finally living his life as who he wants to be at the age of 68 and who would deny Russ the opportunity to have his birth certificate in line with how he has lived his life for decades? Paul O'Kane is, again, another very powerful contribution drawing from his own experience and testimony of how it feels to be marginalised. As a person of faith and belief, how he feels when that is misrepresented, is a very powerful contribution indeed. Can I just say that, while I may not agree with Michelle Thomson, it was important that she did get to speak today on the SNP's speaker's list to reflect her opinion. I want to thank the Presiding Officer for affording Jamie Greene the same opportunity to give a very powerful contribution to this Parliament. What he had to say was important that we need to lead popular opinion, not follow it as politicians, leaders, legislators—that can be tough sometimes—but it is the right thing to do. I commend people across the chamber for doing so. I want to make a few remarks about the importance of those reforms to trans people in Scotland. Prior to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the UK was found by the European Court of Human Rights to be in breach of convention rights in relation to trans people's right to respect for their private and family life and not providing a route to legal gender recognition. The current process was born out of that and was an important moment in the rights of trans people at that time. However, in the 18 years since that act, as many have been said, there have been international developments in best practice, including the reclassification of gender dysphoria by the world health organisations, as well as many other countries introducing similar reforms. A clear international human rights consensus has emerged that legal gender recognition should be provided based on self-declaration. The consensus was set out by the commission of human rights of the council of Europe in a recent report. Trans people have the right to legal recognition of their gender identity. Legal gender recognition procedures should be quick, transparent and accessible and in line with internationally recognised human rights best practices, including self-determination. Such procedures have been implemented successfully in other countries while preserving everyone's human rights. Of course, here at Scotland it is not leading the way. We are following many countries around the world that have already adopted similar processes for gender recognition, including Ireland, Norway, Malta, Denmark, Belgium, New Zealand and Switzerland. I can tell the chamber that, just yesterday, Spain passed the first stage of legislation for self-declaration for people 16 or over. In total, over 350 million people around the world are living in countries or states that offer gender recognition on this basis. The experience in those places has been a beneficial impact on the lives of trans people with no evidence of a negative impact for others. We have said this throughout the passage. We will suspend briefly. Do please continue, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I know what a woman is, and I know the challenge faced by women in our society. The experience in the many countries has been a beneficial impact on the lives of trans people with no evidence of a negative impact for others. We have said this throughout the passage of the bill, and I again refer to the work of Victor Madagalbor-Laws, who has researched the outcomes in those countries and found the outcomes in terms of social inclusion and the decrease in violence against trans people are remarkable. I think that we can all hope that trans people in Scotland will also be able to benefit from those positive outcomes as the bill removes barriers to the enjoyment of their human rights. I want to end with a plea to MSPs to perhaps agree something that we can all move forward with a point of agreement, whether or not you vote for this bill. I hope that we can unite and agree to tackle and challenge transphobia wherever and whenever it occurs. It can occur anywhere, even within this parliamentary building. I am sad to say that I am aware of a trans woman who was in this estate, who was referred to as it by an MSP to another colleague. That has nothing to do with protecting women and girls, but it has everything to do with transphobia. Let's agree that the othering of a minority within our society is totally wrong. If we hear such prejudice here in this Parliament or anywhere else, we call it out for what it is, because we are better than that. I want to end with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr, who said, We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly. I want to thank members again for their contributions to the debate. I commend the bill and the motion to Parliament, and I urge members to support it. That concludes the debate on gender recognition reform Scotland Bill. The question is that motion 7 312, in the name of Shona Robison, on gender recognition reform Scotland Bill, be agreed, and there will be a brief pause to allow members to access the digital voting system.