A bit of light Friday reading for anybody interested in trans rights: the Scottish Government has published its analysis of its consultation over possible reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.
It’s interesting for all kinds of reasons, including numbers: the anti-trans hysteria hadn’t really got into gear in time for this one, so there were just under 16,000 responses compared to more than 100,000 for the English consultation. Despite that, the (small) majority of responses were from people and organisations outside Scotland who would not be affected by any changes.
Overall, 49% of respondents to the consultation are resident in Scotland, with 38% resident in the rest of the UK and the remaining 13% resident elsewhere in the world.
A phrase that comes up again and again in the analysis is that a particular point of view – inevitably, an anti-trans one – was largely put forward by respondents from outside Scotland.
Nevertheless, sober voices prevailed.
The majority of respondents, 60% of those answering the question, agreed with the proposal to introduce a self-declaratory system for legal gender recognition.