The UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) was introduced in response to a 2002 European Court of Human Rights ruling against the UK (Christine Goodwin v. the United Kingdom). It legislated against some practices that were seen as potentially discriminatory against trans people.
On 9 November 2017, the Scottish government launched a consultation (open until 1 March 2018) seeking ‘views on whether and how the Gender Recognition Act 2004 should be amended in relation to the law in Scotland’.
I am in the process of responding to the consultation, and I hope you will respond too if you live in Scotland. I have attempted to navigate the 182-page consultation document and produced a short series of posts explaining what’s in it (as far I possibly can!) while building up my personal response in the process.
My posts follow these parts of the consultation document (which, unhelpfully, has no printed page numbers):
- Part 2 (p9): The Gender Recognition Act 2004
- Part 3 (p12): Reforming the legal gender recognition system in Scotland (Questions 1–4)
- Parts 4, 5 and 7:
- Part 4 (p23): Age of applicants (Questions 5 and 6)
- Part 5 (p31): Marriage and Civil Partnership (Questions 7–9)
- Part 7 (p43): Non-binary people (Questions 12 and 13; Question 14 not covered)
- Not covered:
- Part 6 (p36): Other aspects of the 2004 Act (Questions 10 and 11)
- Part 8 (p52): Conclusion (Questions 15 and 16)
The response itself can be submitted online or using the forms in Annexes A and B (pp54–69; also available in Microsoft Word format: Annex A; Annex B). There are a number of further informational annexes, which I refer to occasionally.