Defend Trans People’s Rights! – Defend Scottish Democracy!

Ray Goodspeed (Leyton and Wanstead CLP) on the latest round of this shameful saga (photo – Ray Goodspeed)

The decision of the UK Tory Government to block the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, passed by the Scottish Parliament on 23^rd December, is an outrage that must be fought by those who support equality for trans people, by socialists and trade unionists, and by all those who wish to defend democracy.

The government have chosen to use Section 35 of the Scottish Parliament Act of 1998, which brought in devolution in the first place, to prevent this bill from receiving ‘royal assent’ (in itself an absurdity, of course). They have done so based on a flimsy semi-legal document – a ‘list of reasons’ – that asserts that the GRR is in conflict with Equalities Law, which is a matter reserved to the UK Parliament.

This ‘list’ was only made available to MPs after the debate was introduced by the Tory Scottish Secretary, as if scribbled in a hurry. He went on for over an hour, unable even to say himself what it contained, claiming that he did not want to “bore members”! Opposition MPs had to speak in the debate while simultaneously reading the document! Various MPs had to pop up to intervene, drawing attention to another ridiculous paragraph they had stumbled across while their colleagues were on their feet and speaking. Such is the spirit in which they casually damage trans people’s lives and hopes.

The matter will almost certainly end up in court as a dispute between the Scottish Government and the UK Tory government, but we cannot rely on the whims of high court judges. We need to fight this with every means at our disposal, and build a unified campaign.

As one young person said to me on an impromptu demonstration at Downing Street, “this is an insult to everybody’s human rights and an insult to democracy…we are angry but not surprised…we know the media hate us, we know the Tory party hates us, but to see the length they will go to, to prevent such a small change from happening is really upsetting. But we’re strong and we’re gonna fight against it.”

Key points

Socialists, trade unionists, activists in the women’s and LGBT+ movements, and others need to be absolutely clear on a number of key points (a more detailed analysis of the bill issues can be found here and a longer analysis of trans issues here and here).

• The gender recognition process is a devolved matter. The original UK wide Gender Recognition Act was passed in 2004 – after devolution was implemented – and it was explicitly listed as a responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. That obviously allows for the possibility of different laws operating in different constituent parts of the UK. It could also be the case, for example, if abortion law was amended in one or other of the different jurisdictions. So the Tory attempt to use this to strike down the bill is invalid.

• Equalities law is a matter reserved to the UK (ie Westminster) Parliament. The main legislation that governs these matters is the Equality Act of 2010, which guarantees equality and human rights for a number of protected categories, including women and trans people. The GRR (Scotland) Bill does not change a single word or comma of the 2010 Act. That is spelt out in a clause of the GRR Bill itself.

• The rights currently enjoyed by trans people, including the right not to be unreasonably excluded from services, etc., are theirs as of right, regardless of whether or not they possess a GRC. The GRR Bill does not give ANY additional rights to trans people under the 2010 Equality Act, nor, in fact, does it change those rights, for better or worse, in any way whatsoever.

• A Gender Recognition Certificate simply allows you to legally change your gender on official state documents, such as your birth, death, and wedding certificates. Many other documents, such as a passport, driving licence or official name-changing document, can already be altered by trans people to reflect their gender identity, and no GRC is required.

• The Scottish bill only changes the method of acquiring a GRC, and has NO effect on what it is used for or what rights it confers. It has NO effect on access to ‘women’s spaces’, such as prisons, toilets, changing rooms, women’s refuges, or what job a trans person can do. It has NO effect on how trans people are treated in work, at school, college or university. GRCs are never required in any of these circumstances. It has no effect whatsoever on women’s sport.

• The Equality Act of 2010 ALREADY explicitly allows for a trans person to be excluded from a particular space, or a job and so on if there is reasonable evidence of a risk and if no other proportionate response is available to eliminate or reduce the risk. The GRR bill changes nothing with regard to this.

Groundless fears

So it is crystal clear, that the fears shamelessly whipped up by the Tories, the religious conservative right, and their useful friends who masquerade as socialists and feminists, are absolutely groundless. The attempt to block this bill has nothing to do with protecting women and children but everything to do with transphobia and an attempt to take away rights that trans people have had since 2010. This is a desperate move from a government facing catastrophic levels of unpopularity in the opinion polls, as a way of throwing red meat to reactionary voters and trying to spread fear and misinformation on this issue among supporters of other parties.

Reactionary bigotry in history is often justified by claims of protecting women and children. The 1967 Homosexual Law Reform Act, which partially legalised sex for gay men in England and Wales, was claimed to protect vulnerable young men by having an absurd age of consent of 21. Strangely, no one in the Tory party was bleating about different laws in different parts of the UK when Scotland was exempted from the 1967 Act. Gay men in Scotland faced another 13 years of total illegality, until 1980.

The infamous Section 28 of the Local Government Act, which prevented local authorities promoting homosexuality or homosexual “pretended families”, was another attempt by the Thatcher government to whip up a culture war in the late 80s, all in the name of protecting children.

If the Tories really cared about protecting women and children, they would do something about the grinding poverty during thirteen years of austerity which has massively and disproportionately had an impact on women and children. If they cared so much about women’s refuges, they would allow local councils more money to fund them instead of standing by and watching them close down. These fine protectors of women imposed a two-child limit on child benefit unless a women could prove she had been raped!

The stench of hypocrisy

And let’s not forget that the party which is currently wringing its hands over protecting the Equality Act actually wants to take the UK out of the jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) altogether! The stench of hypocrisy is unbearable.

But this is not only an opportunistic attack on trans people. It is also a scandalous attack on the devolved Scottish Parliament itself. The GRR Bill was passed by 86 votes to 39 with 4 abstentions – that means that two-thirds of MSPs voted for it, after six years of extensive consultation. Almost 70% of women MSPs voted for it, whereas 23 of the 39 votes against were from men – mainly Tory men. Only 16 women voted against – 9 of them Tories. The GRR was supported by the SNP, Scottish Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Even three Tory MSPs voted for it.  

Left Horizons are not nationalists and we do not support the SNP. We are focussed on the Labour movement and believe that the future for Scottish workers lies in building a fighting socialist and trade union movement in the struggle for a federal socialist Britain. But we are light years away from the petty British nationalism sadly espoused by too many in the Labour Party leadership. We are internationalists, yet we stand categorically for the right of Scotland and Wales to self-determination, up to and including the right to total independence if they so wish. Any attempt to retain the Union by force or to overrule the decisions of the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Senedd on devolved matters should be fought tooth and nail.

The Tories are simultaneously provoking a vicious anti-trans culture war and nationalist divisions to firm up their shrinking popular base. Of course, this plays straight into the hands of the Scottish National Party. Both they and the Tories, from their opposing viewpoints, are much happier talking about nationalism than about uniting working people in all the nations and regions of Britain around class-based issues and socialist policies.

Disastrous Labour response

The Labour Party in Westminster, meanwhile, have reacted to this issue disastrously. Keir Starmer, seemingly on a whim, declared his opposition to aspects of the Scottish bill, particularly the reduction in age from 18 to 16. This flatly contradicts the Scottish Labour Party position, under their moderate leader, Anas Sarwar, which was to support the bill, including the age reduction. Starmer also allowed himself to bumble on in a TV interview about women’s spaces, apparently ignorant that the GRR bill has no effect on that issue.

The Scottish Labour position itself was overly cautious and hemmed in with unnecessary references to safeguarding, but Starmer’s position is simply scandalous. It is reminiscent of those Labour MPs like David Blunkett, who voted against an equal age of consent in 1994.

In Parliament, the Labour Shadow Scottish Secretary, the odious Ian Murray, was floundering, desperate to ‘blame both sides’ – the Tories and the SNP – for the constitutional crisis. It was more about spin and triangulation than taking a firm principled stand, and even the right-wing Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is gay, seemed to be embarrassed by the party’s response. When the ‘list of reasons’ was finally released, even Murray could barely hide his disdain. Yet the shameful decision was taken to abstain in the vote.

Two Labour MPs made anti-trans speeches, Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) and worse, the rabid transphobe Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) who openly supported the Tory government action. Many ordinary members of the Labour movement may have prejudices and confusions around these issues, and very often discussion and education, together with working together in solidarity, are the best ways to win support in the movement for trans people’s rights. But it is high time that hardened transphobic bigots like Duffield were removed from any position representing the party.

Socialists must stand for the unity of all working people, whatever their sex or gender, race, sexuality or disability in the struggle for a socialist future. Further, we must become champions of the oppressed more generally, to point the way towards a freer, more equal and more democratic society. This attempt to attack trans people and the national democratic rights of the people of Scotland must be resisted and defeated.