Yes, the Scottish government’s decision to allow people to self-identify as the opposite sex risks the safety of women and girls (“Gender bill leads to predator fears”, News, Dec 18). However, another effect has been much less commented on. The Scottish government is sabotaging its own ability to make effective policy.
Sex-based data tells us, for example, that girls do better than boys in higher exams; that women earn less than men; that men are more likely to die by suicide than women. This information allows government to develop targeted policies — but once men can easily and legally become women, and vice versa, it ceases to have any value. A sudden spike in suicide rates among women, or in boys achieving A grades, might be the result of individuals changing their legal sex. How would we know?
It is remarkable that a government would knowingly choose to undermine its own ability to make good policy — and even more remarkable that MSPs would vote for it.
Kim Thomas, Welwyn Garden City
Feminists who put men first
Further to Sarah Ditum’s column “The gender issue is now a religion. Fear of blaspheming keeps sensible people quiet” (Comment, last week), I’m completely bewildered by the number of women who say they believe sex is mutable and are prepared to throw their sisters under the bus. They claim to be feminists, but they are prepared to put the rights of men with psychological problems before those of women.
Carol Ann Cunningham, Penmaenmawr, Conwy
The trap is sprung
Many of the women supporting the trans movement are lifelong feminists, and they include some of my closest friends. However, they don’t spend much time in the darker recesses of the internet and they mainly read The Guardian — and so are unaware of the people using trans as a cover for their kinks and misogyny.
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They do not realise that trans isn’t just about sweet young people who are challenging gender norms; and they remember how gay people were discriminated against in the past. They fervently wish to be kind and open-minded.
I struggle to make them see the trap we are walking into. Everything we have fought for is in danger.
Sam Hughes, London NW5
Pioneers betrayed
Before this bill, those who went through the whole trans process of medical supervision and were awarded a gender recognition certificate (GRC) numbered well under 10,000. These people who jumped through all the hoops — often including painful and still largely unsatisfactory surgery — are aghast and dismayed that the GRC, so hard won, is now largely meaningless. They are with the majority who think self-declaration a complete nonsense and an invasion not only of female rights but of their rights too.
Adrienne May, Norfolk
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