Transgender caller deems Scotland's Gender Recognition Act 'utterly ridiculous'

22 December 2022, 15:19

By Grace Parsons

A 74-year-old caller, who has known she was transgender since the age of 7, "does not believe" in Scotland's Gender Recognition Act.

An elderly caller, who has transitioned from male to female, told Shelagh Fogarty that they do "not believe" in Scotland's Gender Recognition Act "at all", branding the bill "utterly ridiculous".

The new Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill will not require a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria that allows a patient to receive a recognition certificate.

Applicants will only need to live with their gender identity for three months, or six if they are aged 16 and 17, and undergo a three-month reflection period.

The caller told Shelagh: "I'm going to upset a lot of my transgender sisters...you don't need a gender recognition certificate and a change on your birth certificate in order to go up to up to women pretending that you are female."

"You could be a crossdresser, for example, they could go into women's spaces and assault women. How many times has that happened? It hardly happens at all.

You don't need a piece of paper called a gender recognition certificate to be able to go up and attack women," the caller told Shelagh after concerns were raised over predatory men taking advantage of the gender law.

The caller shot down the bill: "If you have a gender recognition certificate, there's no magic to that. There are between 200,000-500,000 transgender people in the UK, only about 6300 gender recognition certificates have been issued in the UK since 2004."

The caller said they believe the law has been passed to sidestep the need for medical and psychological care of transgender people. Instead of benefitting the transgender community, the caller said: "It's going to save the Scottish government a load of money."