Dear Dawn,

Reject the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill

I hope you are well. The Stage 3 debate and votes on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill will take place on 20 and 21 December. As my MP, I am asking you to reject the Bill and support any attempts by the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch for the UK Government to refuse to accept gender recognition certificates issued in Scotland.

Westminster rejected the notion of Self ID back in 2020, realising that the use of 'gender' as a catch-all term, subordinating or just ignoring the importance of biological sex, had a severe impact on Women's hard won rights.

These concerns have now been echoed by the United Nations, as well as the EHRC, in recent months over Nicola Sturgeon's badly drafted GRA Reform Bill, which now threatens to spark a constitutional crisis, in addition to ignoring the changes could affect the safety of women and girls. I urge you to read yesterday’s Times Article, SNP’s self-identity bill could ‘harm women’s rights in England’ without delay to gain a better grasp of the issues at stake for Women and Girls.

In October, the EHRC noted that the main outcome of the Scots GRA Reform (Self ID) will mean there will be two different processes for obtaining a GRC within Britain. Clearly, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, and reducing the living requirement tests to 6 months, means a larger cohort of MALES may now have legal access to biological FEMALE provisions in law. This would include allowing biologically male Scottish prisoners in English jails to demand to be placed in female-only prisons. This is happening now in Scotland, as per the case of “Katie Dolatowski”, the convicted male paedophile, who has now been housed in a female prison, after repeatedly breaking curfew restrictions and violently assaulting a fellow male in a male prison.

Given the Scots proposals on GRA Reform also allows people over the age of 16 to apply for a birth certificate with their new sex within six months without a gender dysphoria diagnosis, we could soon be witnessing the spectacle of biological boys in girls single sex schools, and an increase in the spate of sexual assaults and rapes, similar to what happened in Loudon County in Virginia.

The EHRC also warned of “practical difficulties or confusion are likely to arise in cross-border situations” if England were to accept the Scottish GRC's e.g., challenges for trans people with Scottish GRCs to be certain of their legal status and rights. This is because as Kemi Badenoch has warned in yesterday’s Times Newspaper, the Scottish proposals highlight a ludicrous set of affairs which could result in a biological male being a “woman” in Scotland, but remaining a Man in England. in other words, “legal chaos”, as Ms. Badenoch rightly put it.

Senior UK government figures have also warned that the Scottish reform of the GRC could lead to “gender tourism” with Scottish “self-declared” transgender women accessing female-only spaces south of the border in a way not available to people in England.

Just last month, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, also condemned the SNP’s gender recognition reforms as posing a danger to women and urged Scottish ministers to postpone the legislation. Her exact words, which I quote in full, below:

“Such proposals would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a GRC and the rights associated with it. This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity.

“The Scottish government … does not provide for any safeguarding measures to ensure that the procedure is not, as far as can be reasonably assured, abused by sexual predators and other perpetrators of violence. These include access to both single-sex spaces and gender-based spaces.”

She also warned the Scottish government that their GRA Reforms could also infringe the Equality Act if women from different religious backgrounds, including Jewish and Muslim Women, felt excluded by the consequences of the gender reforms.

Additionally, Ms. Alsalem echoed the concerns of some policy analysts such as MBM who believe the quality of data collected in the census has been degraded by the SNP’s obsession with gender, rather than sex-based, definitions, pointing out the Scottish government was already in breach of the UN CEDAW protocol — the Convention of the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women — which she called a “concerning” development.

As you are no doubt aware, the UK Government has ratified CEDAW. Therefore, it falls to the UK Government to ensure that women's rights under CEDAW are upheld across the whole territory of the United Kingdom, and for Parliament in Westminster to step in if the Scots GRR Bill fails to meet its obligations, as a signatory to CEDAW.

Far from the Scottish GRR Bill being "International Best Practice", the lack of provisions and the sheer disregard it reveals for Womens safety and well-being, despite the numerous warnings from policy analysts and state as well international entities, means Scotland is in danger of becoming a pariah state, and dragging the rest of the UK into the mire with her.

I am not sure why Nicola Sturgeon and Shona Robison are hell bent on introducing such flawed, unfair, rushed, vague and contradictory legislation without safeguards, when violent males will almost certainly abuse the proposed self-identification process to acquire a gender recognition certificate (GRC), but I don't care. Scotland is not a state actor, but the UK is. If Scotland has decided to jeopardise the safety of Scottish girls and Women, then it is up to you, as my legislator and representative in Parliament to ensure that the damaging effect of that is limited to Scotland.

As Kemi Badenoch warned of the “far-reaching consequences” across the UK from Sturgeon's proposals, she highlighted that its “not possible” for the legislation to be “fully contained” within Scotland. “I have heard from a number of women who have highlighted their concerns about these proposals and the implications for wider society.”

Given Westminster has already rejected Self ID, acceptance of the Scots reform seems to me a profoundly undemocratic way of developing policy that has an impact on many (not just one) protected categories within the 2010 Equality Act. The exemptions in the Equality Act would effectively be rendered meaningless if the Scots GRC allows MALE Self-ID into the FEMALE Sex class. I am calling on you as my legislator to not outsource your critical thinking on this very important legislation, to Trans Radical Activists or organised lobby groups such as Stonewall, and reject this undemocratic change to women's rights by stealth.

The policy capture, and conflation of sex-gender at the expense of women and girls must stop, and I need you to now speak up publicly in favour of the rights of Women and Girls in Brent.

My apologies for such a lengthy and blunt letter, but given the impact of this policy change on 32.5 million women and girls throughout the UK for generations to come, I do not believe it is right to bypass the normal democratic procedures of public scrutiny of  Scottish policies and proposed legislative changes, as regards GRA Reform.

I would love if you could forward this letter to Kemi Badenoch as Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, and I look forward to your response at the earliest opportunity, as many women I've spoken to in the borough share similar concerns, but have not had the time and opportunity to write to you.

Kind regards,