Gender Recognition Bill snubs female rights

The UK is a liberal country when it comes to sexual orientation. Equal marriage is generally accepted and crossdressing is seen as a matter of personal choice. Such measures have entered our culture and should make life easier for trans people.

However, the Gender Recognition Bill goes further than that and raises a lot of questions about ex-males accessingwomen'sspaces.theworld of women’s sport, for example, is divided on the issue – some sports have accepted ex-males on an equal basis with women, whereas others have ruled that ex-males have a biological advantage acquired as they grew up and so those sports do not accept ex-males as women. Likewise, there are problems of prisoners in male prisons being able to demand transfer to women's prisons and ex-males accessing women's refuges.

Nor is it clear why people should be allowed to rewrite their birth certificate. A birth certificate states what a person's sex was at birth. It does notpreventanyonefromliving as the opposite sex later in life. However, giving people the right to alter their birth certificate will make the problems outlined above, concerning access to women's sport, prisons and refuges, much more difficult to resolve because it will seem to confer a right of access. For that reason many people are worried that the Scottish Government should allow anyone to rewrite their birth certificate.

These are just some of the issues which cause widespreadconcernaboutthegender Recognition Reform Bill. Women's rights campaigners have highlighted these issues (among others) but it is not clear how the problems have been resolved so that the Bill can proceed. Can someone please explain how the Bill deals with these difficulties? No Bill at all would be better than a Bill which ignores women’s rights.

LES REID Edinburgh