Will the Gender Identity Act weaken support for the SNP?

Hold your horses! Don’t say ‘I thought you were an effin professor? This is nonsensical non-research!’ I know that.

I was a professor. I taught research methods. I supervised PhD students. I got published in ‘top’ peer-reviewed journals! I know what this is. It’s just a wee Twitter survey only slightly better than a BBC Scotland random survey of folk in the High Street, Daftown.

A self-selecting sample of 446 out of 3 800 followers is offered here as merely ‘interesting innit?’ Obviously, self-selection biases the sample toward those who are angry about this and probably over-states their number.

If there’s any truth in it, though, it is a wee bit worrying:

24% are less supportive of the SNP than they were BECAUSE of this issue.

Nearly 17% say it will STOP them voting SNP.

We don’t know, of course whether that means they will vote for another party or will not vote at all.

OK – go ahead and let your steam off now. I’m away somewhere else.

17 thoughts on “Will the Gender Identity Act weaken support for the SNP?”

      1. I don’t publish a list. I do, however, retweet 90% of your articles. If I had a list, you’d be on it. So there! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. 🙂

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  2. Well, I find it less worrying – could have been worse. We are going to see the SNP targeted for their stance on this issue in our erstwhile news services and the Tory leaders, over the coming months, no doubt. But the fact of the matter is, the GRA reform stuff is not going to go away, all parties are on the bandwagon, and we are just going to have to deal with it. The choices are, deal with it with the SNP in government, or try and deal with it with a LibDem (full on GRA) Labour coalition or some other mix. I’d say the idea of not voting for the SNP in future because of this is not going to resolve anything – but it’s good to show them how unpopular their stance is as well.

    Only thing we need to be careful of, is allowing the SNP to be individually targeted – the LibDems are taking money from big pharmaceutical companies directly linked with wanting these reforms – the SNP are by no means the worst party for these bonkers policies.

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  4. Other parties seem to be putting it more on the back burner at the moment , not a good time for the SNP to be losing votes coming up to a crucial election at Holyrood

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  5. And how many of those who responded to the survey have actually made their views known, where it would matter, by submitting comments to the consultation currently taking place on the draft proposals put out for consultation by the Scottish Government? The second such consultation the Scottish Government has held. The current consultation ends in March.

    The Scottish Government in line with the UK Government are attempting to ammend the GRA Act 2004 NOT the Equalities Act 2010 which among other things protects women’s rights.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/review-of-gender-recognition-act-2004/

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    2. You also forgot to mention that Trans people are fully protected under the current human rights legislation, protected characteristics and anti-discrimination laws. The point is that the proposed changes will impact on everyone else’s human rights, but the government claims not. Any person with a serious mental illness will ALWAYS claim they need no assessment – so believing this is not wise, it will harm them, and it will harm us.

      The proposed changes are wholly unnecessary at this time, and should be explored and tested outwith our legal system before any laws are implemented. The UK government is not amending anything. They have halted all reform of the bill. (a political manoeuvre I should imagine)

      If you believe the GRA reform to be a good thing Legerwood, explain it to us and outline your reasoning.

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      1. Contrary,
        No where in any of my responses on this issue on this site or any other have I made my views on this issue known nor do I have any intention of doing so. What I have done is ask people to read around the subject and the proposed amendments in greater depth than a 140-character Tweet.

        The apparent halting of the amendment process by the UK Gov to which you allude seems to be of recent vintage and in some ways echoes the halt made by the Scottish Gov last year which they then restarted by producing a new draft Bill and re-opening the consultation process.

        As you suggest the halt called by the UK Gov may be politically motivated but who knows. All of this seems to have started because of a report from a Commons Committee which included evidence from the trans community on the current process of obtaining legal recognition. There are apparently just shy of 5,000 in the UK who have gone through this process since the Act came into force in 2005 and an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 trans people. The latter might be said to have self-IDed.

        This is from the UK Gov circa 2018
        https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act-2004

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      2. Contrary,
        Here is a link to a Briefing Paper from the Commons Library in January 2020. There is a link to the Commons Committee’s 2016 report on the issue within the briefing paper. There is also a quote from Lyn Truss in Oct 2019, if I remember correctly, saying that the Gov would take its time to consider its response. Understandable perhaps given they had 100,000 responses to their consultation. No mention of the Gov shelving the whole thing.

        https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8746

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    3. Well.

      The point is that the Scottish government documents and consultation do not help anyone understand why there is some outcry about it, and why some of the pro-GRA organisations cry ‘transphobe’ at anyone that criticises it. Just blandly posting links to government docs and claiming it will help clarify anything, really just doesn’t. Without context, it’s not a very helpful contribution.

      So, briefly:

      The Scottish Government claim there are no changes to Women’s protected rights (women’s only spaces etc) – and they do not propose any changes to these laws.

      The proposed GRA reform would mean that anyone, absolutely anyone, can claim to be a woman and change their birth certificate to say so: no medical assessment, nothing. If this happens, then anyone claiming to be a woman can – as the equalities act says – enter women’s protected areas. This throws up the question of how are women to ensure they have their legally protected spaces? Anyone can then enter them.

      This means that both laws cannot stand – either both have to be altered, or neither. There is a conflict, that the Scottish government claims does not exist. It is claimed that some pro-GRA reform groups that people expressing concern are transphobes, and so are trying to stop people questioning some very obvious flaws in the logic of making the changes.

      If this was perfectly safe, and we could all trust each other to behave in a reasonable manner, that’s great. Except, I believe there are people, mostly men in fact, out there in the big bad world that are unpleasant and would think nothing of taking advantage of this ‘trust’ to abuse women, terrorise them in fact. (there are news reports of such things already, as institutions start implementing procedures that are not yet in law, I believe). Inadequate responses about safeguarding of women’s rights has developed into more vocal concerns being expressed.

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  6. John
    I believe the numbers that will be turned away from the SNP are greater than your survey. Those who have little interest in day to day politics are obviously not included in the survey. Come the next time to vote (election or referendum) the Scottish media will have them well informed about the GRA and the army of lurkers in Womens spaces etc.

    The Scottish Government are holding a consultation on the GRA for a second time.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill-consultation-scottish-government/

    This link is from google, at the time of posting it wasn’t working.

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    1. The link is working but you then have to go to Chapter 1 and the link is within that section.

      To save you having to do that here is the direct link

      https://consult.gov.scot/family-law/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill/

      But I would strongly suggest that you read some of the documentation produced that explains the background to this exercise because there is a lot of misinformation being circulated and a lot of it is deliberate misinformation.

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      1. The SNP women’s pledge have written out possible answers to the GRA reform bill consultation, they say you can cut and paste the text if you like (obviously, only if you agree with it), but it is also helpful for giving some insights into what the proposed reforms mean:

        http://www.snpwomenspledge.com

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