The Scottish Government would like you to believe that proposed changes to the GRA will have no impact on women’s rights or single sex spaces and argue that these are protected in the Equality Act. Let’s look at this for a moment.

The Equality Act allows for single sex spaces where it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Where the single sex exceptions apply you can exclude someone of the male sex from female spaces whether or not they hold a GRC.

But the Equality Act states that service providers cannot ask someone if they have a GRC and a GRC allows the holder to change their birth certificate to that of the opposite sex to their sex observed and recorded sex at birth.

So the holder of a GRC could claim to have been observed and recorded as female at birth and that they are, therefore, entitled to access single sex spaces even where the single sex exceptions apply.

Currently the conditions to obtain a GRC are restricted to those with a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and only a tiny number of people hold a GRC allowing them to change their birth certificate.

Under the proposed changes to the GRA the category of people entitled to apply for a GRC is significantly widened to anybody who self identifies as the opposite sex.

They need take no hormones, nor undertake surgery and as they cannot be asked if they have a GRC virtually anybody could claim to have been observed and recorded as female at birth.

This makes the exceptions in the EA virtually unworkable as to challenge and suggest someone was not actually observed and recorded as female at birth despite what it says on their birth certificate is unlikely to ever happen. So the EA becomes impossibly to enforce.

Do you see the problem yet?
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