Majority reject SNP gender self-identification plan

MORE than half of Scots oppose the SNP’s plans to let people self-identify their gender, a survey shows.

It reveals 53 per cent believe that approval from a doctor should be needed for a person to change their sex in law.

The poll found that most people were supportive of the right of transgender people to express their identity but wanted them to get medical evidence. It comes as the Scottish Government prepares to bring forward reforms to gender recognition laws.

To obtain a certificate legally recognising their acquired gender, a trans person currently requires medical evidence and a twoyear period of living as that gender. But the new proposals would remove the need for medical assessment, and allow someone to obtain a gender recognition certificate through self-declaration after six months.

The survey carried out for policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie found that 53 per cent of Scots believe that a doctor’s approval should be needed for a person to change their sex in law.

Just over a quarter of respondents (27 per cent) think that a doctor’s approval should not be required, while the remaining fifth said they did not know.

Voting Lib Dem in the 2021 Scottish parliament election was ‘the strongest predictor of support for a doctor approval model for legal sex change’.

The poll of 1,028 Scottish residents was undertaken by Survation between November 18 and 25. It found that 64 per cent of Scottish adults agree that people should be able to freely express their transgender identity, with only 13 per cent disagreeing.

Responding to the findings, policy analyst Lucy Hunter Blackburn said: ‘An unhelpful and polarising aspect of the discussion about GRA [Gender Recognition Act] reform has been the positioning of support for retaining medical approval for individuals seeking a GRC [Gender Recognition Certificate] as “anti-trans”.

‘Our poll shows quite clearly that that simply isn’t the case.’