First Minister Nicola Sturgeon plans on allowing teenagers to change their gender with no medical assessment
FILE PHOTO: JK Rowling poses for photographers in London, Britain, November 13, 2018 © AP / Joel C Ryan
‘Harry Potter’ author JK Rowling has condemned a plan by the Scottish government to allow almost anyone to legally change their gender without a medical diagnosis. The plan will allow “predatory men” into women’s spaces, Rowling argued.
If passed, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill would allow anyone aged 16 or over who has lived as their “acquired gender” for three months to have their birth certificate changed, scrapping a previous requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a medical condition referring to a sense of discomfort with one’s gender.
The bill has been criticized by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and by feminist activists.
Despite calling herself a “real feminist,” Sturgeon is “riding roughshod over the rights of women and girls” with her bill, Rowling argued in a Sunday Times op-ed.
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“In Scotland, it may be easier to change the sex on your birth certificate than it is to change it on your passport,” Rowling wrote. As a consequence, she continued, “intact males” who have not had any sex-change surgery or hormone treatment will be able to enter “women’s spaces such as public bathrooms, changing rooms, rape support centres, domestic violence refuges, hospital wards and prison cells that were hitherto reserved for women.”
Rowling noted that as of 2019, 90% of sexual offenses committed in changing rooms happened in those that were gender-neutral. Furthermore, activists have warned that female prison inmates face an increased risk of sexual assault after the UK High Court ruled last year that male prisoners who identify as transgender can be housed in women’s prisons, even those held for sexual offenses.
“If any woman or girl suffers voyeurism, sexual harassment, assault or rape in consequence of the Scottish government’s lax new rules, the blame will rest squarely with those at Holyrood,” Rowling concluded, referring to Scotland’s parliament.
Rowling is no stranger to criticism for her stance on transgender issues, and has received death and rape threats from trans activists on several occasions.
