SNP gender law ‘would apply to English schools’
Scottish Bill would oblige girls’ schools around UK to admit biologically male students, report finds
SINGLE-SEX girls’ schools in England will have to admit biologically male pupils under Scotland’s proposed gender recognition laws, a report states.
Girls’ schools would be guilty of discrimination under sex equality laws if they refused entry to biologically male teenagers who had been granted female gender recognition certificates from Scotland, according to the study by the think tank Policy Exchange published today.
Other single-sex spaces such as hospital wards, changing rooms and lavatories would also face the same requirement to admit biological males or females granted certificates in Scotland or risk breaching the Equality Act.
Scotland’s proposed law allows people to change their legal gender without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in three months. It covers schoolchildren by lowering the minimum age at which people can apply to change gender from 18 to 16.
Dr Michael Foran, the author of the report, said recent court rulings combined with the legislation meant the Bill would fundamentally change the nature of the Equality Act, not only in Scotland but across the United Kingdom.
He said this was another reason why the Government could, and should, block royal assent for the Scottish Bill to prevent it from becoming law. This can be done by invoking a section 35 order under the Scotland Act 1998.
The report is backed by Lord Keen, a former advocate general for Scotland and justice minister, who criticised the Scottish parliament for the impact the legislation would have on UK equality laws. He said: “It would not only be impractical but constitutionally improper for the UK Government to permit a devolved legislature to enact a provision that had a material impact upon the operation of the law throughout the United Kingdom.”
Ministers have signalled they are ready to take the unprecedented step of blocking the Scottish Bill. A decision could come as early as next week.
Ministers are also looking at amendments that would require transgender Scots to apply for a UK gender recognition certificate in order to be recognised outside Scotland.
Dr Foran said a ruling by the court of session set the seal on changing the way the equality laws operated in the UK.
This declared that a gender recognition certificate altered a person’s sex for the purposes of the Equality Act, including provisions to advance diversity via positive measures.
“This legal holding has profound implications for the effect that the Gender Recognition Reform Bill will have on the operation of the Equality Act,” he said.
“It will change the operation of the law in relation to single-sex services, making it potentially more difficult for women-only spaces to exclude biological males.
“It will change the operation of the law in relation to single-sex associations which cannot discriminate on the basis of gender reassignment in their membership admissions. It will change the law relating to single-sex schools. As it stands, it provides that 16 to 18-year-old biological males who hold a gender recognition certificate cannot be excluded from single sex girls’ schools.
“There is no exception for gender reassignment discrimination in relation to schools. This Bill will confer on certain biological males a legal right of admission to girls’ schools, a right which otherwise does not exist.”
Section 35 allows UK ministers to prohibit Holyrood from submitting the Bill for royal assent if they believe it would affect the equality legislation reserved to Westminster.