The Scottish legislation would make it easier for trans people to secure legal recognition of their acquired gender without a medical diagnosis.
The Bill, if passed, will allow trans people to make a legally binding declaration that they will live permanently in their acquired gender and no longer have to offer medical reports or evidence of a transition. On Monday, Sturgeon appeared on BBC Radio 4’sradio program to insist she disagreed “fundamentally” with Rowling’s opposition to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and her claim that it threatened vulnerable women.
The proposed legislation “doesn’t give trans people any more rights, doesn’t give trans people one single additional right that they don’t have right now. Nor does it take away from women any of the current existing rights that women have under the equalities act,” Sturgeon argued.