Chamber and committees

Naomi, in relation to some of the issues around gender dysphoria, is there any need for the kind of medical gatekeeping that we heard about this morning?

Catherine, we have heard from previous witnesses that not all trans people will have gender dysphoria and that it is not a feature of all trans people’s experiences of their identity. In Engender’s policy and advocacy work, have there been discussions or have you engaged with people who have had a clear problematic relationship with medicalisation and with maintaining such a diagnosis and the psychiatric assessments that go along with it in any gender identity process?

Sandy, your statement was very clearly along the same lines as those of Rape Crisis Scotland’s member organisations. The network has been trans-inclusive for 15 years and is operating without an issue. Can you say a bit more about how you have dealt with the medicalisation of trans identity if it has come up in services that either you or Rape Crisis Scotland network members have experienced?

Sorry, but can I just ask what you mean when you talk about the wider group?

Meet the criteria.

Thanks. I will leave that there.

I just wondered why you raised the Scottish sentencing guidelines.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for joining us. Thank you, too, for your opening statements and the evidence that you submitted in advance.

I am interested in exploring a couple of areas, but I want first to pick up on the issue of gender dysphoria and the bill’s removal of the requirement for such a diagnosis. With regard to the discussion on whether gender dysphoria is a mental illness—the World Health Organization and the United Nations have made it quite clear that it is not—can you say a little bit about the evidence or, in your view, the lack of evidence on gender dysphoria?

I ask Lucy Hunter Blackburn to start.

Sorry, but I want Susan to answer the question, given that she raised the issue in her evidence.

Susan Smith, in your opening remarks you spoke about the eligibility criteria more broadly—that is, not only those that are associated with gender dysphoria. Will you say more about the criteria that you consider to be legitimate and not legitimate, and why?