Review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004: consultation analysis

1. Introduction

Background

1.1. This report presents analysis of responses to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the review of the Gender Recognition Act 2014.

1.2. The consultation ran from 9 Nov 2017 to 1 Mar 2018. There were 16 consultation questions, each with a closed and an open element. The consultation paper is available from the Scottish Government’s website at: https://consult.gov.scot/family-law/review-of-the-gender-recognition-act-2004/.

Profile of respondents

1.3. In total, 15,697^[2] responses were available for analysis, of which 15,532 were from individual members of the public and 165 were from groups or organisations. The majority of responses were received through the Scottish Government’s Citizen Space consultation hub.

1.4. Respondents were asked to identify whether they were responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation. Organisational respondents were then allocated to one of nine categories by the analysis team. A full list of organisational respondents can be found in Annex 1.

1.5. Respondents were also asked to identify whether they were resident in Scotland, the rest of the UK or elsewhere in the world. The 125 individual respondents who did not identify an area have been placed in the rest of the world group.

1.6. A breakdown of the number of responses received by respondent type and by area is set out in Table 1 below. Overall, 49% of respondents to the consultation are resident in Scotland, with 38% resident in the rest of the UK and the remaining 13% resident elsewhere in the world. The majority of organisational respondents, 63%, were based in Scotland. Amongst the organisational respondents, the Trans Group was the only one in which the majority of respondents were not based in Scotland.

Table 1: Respondents by type

* Health and Social Care Partnership

Analysis and reporting

1.7. The remainder of this report presents a question-by-question analysis of the comments made. A small number of respondents did not make their submission on the consultation questionnaire but submitted their comments in a statement-style format. This content was analysed qualitatively under the most directly relevant consultation question.

1.8. The further comments made have generally been presented according to the balance of opinion at the closed question. For example, if the majority of respondents to a question were in agreement, the views of those who agreed and went on to comment are presented first. It should be noted that across the questions respondents who disagreed or said no at a question were more likely to make a comment and their comments tended to be longer than those made by respondents who had agreed or said yes. This means the analysis tends not to run in order of number of comments made.

1.9. The analysis gives a sense of scale for the more frequently made points. In each case, the proportion of respondents making a comment is calculated against the answer at the closed question and then the number of those respondents commenting. For example, if 1,000 respondents who had answered yes at Question X went on to comment, and 200 or 20% of respondents made Point A, this would be presented as 1 in 5 respondents. The smallest proportion given is 1 in 10 respondents.

1.10. The analysis of further comments has also highlighted any significant difference in the issues raised by those resident in Scotland and those living elsewhere.

1.11. The language used in the analysis reflects that used by respondents. The analysis team appreciates that the language used can be of particular importance and significance to respondents and no offence is ever intended.

1.12. Finally, please note that the percentages set out in the charts contained within the report and the tables at Annex 2 may not always sum to 100% due to rounding.