Rising Transphobia in the Western World and Scotland's Gender Recognition Reform Bill

February 7th, 2023

Loren Meehan

In 2002, The United Kingdom(UK) fought the European Court of Human Rights in the case Goodwin v United Kingdom on a transgender person's ability to change the sex on one’s birth certificate (Christine Goodwin vs. The United Kingdom, 2002)[1]. The UK lost the case and as such created the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), implemented in 2004[2].

The GRA was very restrictive and required numerous bureaucratic hoops for an individual to jump through, giving the ability to change the sex on one’s birth certificate, but not without spending significant time and money, and working with a system actively opposed to one’s existence. The GRA required diagnosis of gender dysphoria, to have lived in their "acquired gender" for two years, and have made a statutory declaration that they intend to live in the acquired gender until death [3]. A diagnosis alone requires the money, time, and resources that a minority group would not have access to, with employment [4] and housing discrimination [5] lack of social safety nets [6], high levels of physical and sexual abuse [5], and comorbid mental health issues [7].

Wait times for UK gender clinics are taking on average 4 years [8], with doctors having the right to refuse care without reason [9]. The lack of access to gender-affirming care has significant effects on the mental health of the trans community, and many are turning to non-prescription hormones ordered off the internet, which presents a significant health risk [10].

Let’s lay out some statistics to show the state of transgender issues in the UK:

• 40% of trans people face housing discrimination, and 25% have been homeless at some point in their life

• 41% of trans people experience a hate crime at least once a year, this statistic is 53% for trans people under 24 years of age. 79% of trans people don’t report these crimes to the police as they receive lack of support, or more discrimination.

• 80% of non-binary, and 73% of binary trans people face consistent transphobia from colleagues, and 12% report having been physically assaulted in the workplace.

• 63% of trans people face transphobia while seeking employment, and 51% hide their LGBT status in the workplace to avoid employment discrimination

• 14% of trans people have been refused general healthcare due to their transgender status, 70% experience transphobia when seeking general healthcare, leading to 51% of trans people to avoid seeing a doctor when feeling unwell. 98% find transition related healthcare inadequate

All statistics from [5] and [6].

The transgender community in the UK faces severe systemic and individualized discrimination, with the country being known among the transgender community to have a high volume of influential TERFs [11] (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), such as J. K. Rowling, Maya Forstater, and others. While the acronym includes the term feminist, TERFs often contribute towards actions harming cis women, collaborating with known right-wing misogynists like Matt Walsh or Andy Ngô [12], and reducing women to their genitalia. Examples of action perpetuated by TERFs hostile to cis women include: support of genital examination for youth sports [13], targeting of cis women with atypical sex karyotypes (Sex chromosome pairs that are not XX or XY), atypical endocrine function (Testosterone production and bone density), intersex conditions (Non-standard genitalia for one’s sex karyotype), and fertility conditions.

TERFs perpetuate the pseudoscientific idea that human sex is binary, and that gender follows sex.

In reality, sex is bimodal [14], meaning that it probabilistically strays towards binary sex, however intersex individuals make up 0.018% of the population [15], ~1.4 million people, and people with atypical sex chromosomes make up 0.069% of the population [16], ~5.6 million people. In addition, intersex or chromosomal conditions have no effect on gender, and in general, human physiology is a combination of incredibly complex systems that cannot be assigned a simple black and white binary.

The reason I mention the high prevalence of TERFs in the UK, is that they are the ones spearheading anti-transgender legislation in the union. This brings us to the main topic of this article,

Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill

To quote the Scottish parliament's official website, “The Bill changes the process to get a gender recognition certificate (GRC). A GRC is a certificate that legally recognises that a person’s gender is not the gender that they were assigned at birth, but is their “acquired gender” [17]. The current process for obtaining a GRC is set out in the Gender Recognition Act ( 2004). This Bill amends that Act to make a new process in Scotland.

The parliament's main concerns were with the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the problems with which are detailed above, the need to live as one’s true gender for 2 years without any gender affirming care to only 3 months, and to allow youth trans individuals (Ages 18 to 16) to have the ability to apply for a GRC [18] [17]. To most people, the bill seems irrelevant to their lives. To trans people in Scotland, it is actively beneficial in creating easier access to gender affirmation on official documentation. To TERFs in the UK, mostly outside of Scotland, this bill was used to fearmonger against trans women. TERF groups used the claim that it would allow any man to walk into women's spaces and bathrooms, despite evidence to the contrary [19]. TERFs protested the bill, attacked trans people, one woman flashed her genitals to a crowd, stating “ If you will not be decent, then I will be indecent.” [20], and TERF groups often ignored the reform aspect of the bill's title, acting like trans people had never been able to get a GRC and would be able to as of the bills passing.

Despite transphobic activist group efforts, the bill passed in the Scottish parliament by 86 to 39 [21] and was sent to royal assent, the final stage in which the king signs off on all bills in the union before they pass as law. This sounds like positive growth, so why is this article named as is? Following the vote in scottish parliament, the UK government decided that there was need to examine the reforms [22], with the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stating: “I think it is completely reasonable for the UK government to have a look at it, understand what the consequences are for women and children’s safety in the rest of the UK, and then decide on what the appropriate course of action is.” [23]. Shortly after the government’s “examinations”, the UK government used section 35 [24], the so-called “Nuclear option”, to block the bill from royal assent [25], therefore directly interfering with Scottish parliamentary process. This is the first time this has happened in 25 years [26], and occurring not long after the Independence referendum in 2014, which kept Scotland in the Union by only a 5% majority [27]. The UK government has put the state of the union at risk, angering even those opposed to the bill in Scotland, all for what? To stop it from becoming slightly easier for trans people to get a piece of paper affirming their gender. Despite trans people commiting no greater amount of sexual crime than their cis counterparts, being subject to greater danger [28], the UK would rather lose Scotland than make their lives slightly easier.

This trend is not unique to the UK, anti-transgender legislation has been sweeping across the United States[29] [30], especially aimed towards trans youth [31], and worldwide hate-crime, assault, and discrimination statistics continue to rise [32]. Despite the majority of the west becoming more accommodating and safer for many minority groups, progress on trans rights seems to be reversing [33].

Why is this?

It’s hard to say why trans rights are declining across the world, but most likely, the reason isn't due to anything abnormal. It’s likely due to the desire for a scapegoat. The future is scary and uncertain, the systems we have built are designed to concentrate power in the hands of few. Creating a boogeyman to fear gets votes, it comforts people, it allows us to point the blame at individuals instead of making systemic changes to society. Transgender people just happen to be the scapegoat right now, a vulnerable population that inherently affects the social systems of gender and identity. Change to the status quo is scary, and like any living organism, all society desires is to maintain homeostasis. Because of the inherent change that trans people present, they are an easy source of blame, and something to fear when one does not understand.

Research shows that the more people interact with minorities on a daily basis, the more tolerant they are [34], called the contact hypothesis in social psychology [35]. Therefore, the best way to solve this problem of increasing transphobia is to continue to raise awareness and representation, to show that it’s normal for people outside of the gender binary to exist, and that they present no harm. This is the easiest goal to strive for, things can’t get better until trans people no longer serve as a sufficient scapegoat to create fear and provide votes and power.