We have responded to the Scottish Government consultation on the draft SSI to add ‘Sex’ as a characteristic to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. A copy of our response is available here.
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/10/12/mbm… The EHRC is also supportive and highlights the current imbalance:
"Failure to include sex would mean that women and girls in particular would remain unprotected against hate crime on the basis of their sex, unlike other protected characteristic groups."
equalityhumanrights.com/draft-ssi-add-…

We are quoted in today’s @heraldscotland about the ongoing lack of clarity for Police Scotland officers in relation to its policies on recording and searching.
heraldscotland.com/news/25222244.… We and others have repeatedly drawn these matters to the attention of Police Scotland and the @ScotPolAuth. In relation to recording, we lodged a parliamentary petition on recording rape accurately over 4 years ago. It remains open.
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/criminal-justi…

Our analysis of a Home Office database for offenders under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) that has recording options for 51 different gender identities is covered in today’s @MailOnline.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… Our full analysis is here.
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/03/24/pan…

Our statement on this morning's ruling by the UK Supreme Court.

We welcome the unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court this morning that sex in the Equality Act is a lifelong, fixed biological characteristic./ murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/04/16/sta… The decision by the UK’s highest court provides definitive protection to women and girls, gives clarity to organisations, and clears up the confusion created by the Scottish Government in earlier rounds of this case.

We consider reports that the current UK Supreme Court case could have implications for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, and set out why responsibility for the next move on the Bill would rest in the hands the Scottish Government.🧵murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/04/14/uk-… The Bill is currently paused, as the previous UK Government intervened to prevent it becoming law, based mainly (but not only) on concerns about its interaction with the Equality Act, using an Order under s35 of the Scotland Act. The SG lost its judicial review against this.

We have written to the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), asking that it reviews the Scottish Prison Service policy on transgender prisoners, fully taking into account the human rights of vulnerable female prisoners & female prison officers.
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/04/04/how… Our call for a review is covered in today's @heraldscotland. heraldscotland.com/news/25062581.…

NEW: We have published a briefing note which considers the implications of the Sullivan Review for Scotland’s public bodies. It covers @scotgov guidance on data collection on sex and gender identity, and data recording by Police Scotland and NHS Scotland. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/04/02/bri… Scotland is the only UK jurisdiction to have developed guidance for public bodies on how to collect data on sex, gender identity and trans status. Published by the Chief Statistician in 2021, it advises public bodies that they need not routinely collect data on biological sex.

NEW: Our latest blog charts the extraordinary behaviour of Police Scotland over the past 6 years, in response to a simple question: could a rapist ever be recorded as a woman, because he tells the police that he identifies as one?  murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/03/03/was… In summary, the national force, having previously said the answer to this is ‘yes’, is now saying ‘no’. This implies that Police Scotland has repeatedly misled a parliamentary inquiry by the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee over the past 4 years. 2/

Our submission to the @SP_EHRCJ Call for Views on the operation of the Public Sector Equality Duty in Scotland is covered in today’s @heraldscotland. heraldscotland.com/news/24978510.… With reference to policies published by Police Scotland, Scottish Government & the Scottish Prison Service, we show how public authorities are failing to meet their existing obligations in relation to protections for women & girls. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2025/03/03/mbm…

This article in today’s Telegraph highlights that the Police Scotland ‘Transitioning at Work’ policy is in breach of employment law. We have been raising concerns about this policy with PS and the SPA since it was first published in 2019.🧵
telegraph.co.uk/gift/0e9c187b7… In 2019 we briefed Police Scotland HR staff on the newly published policy and explained that it was open to legal challenge. 2/
scotland.police.uk/spa-media/ltzd…

We are quoted in this article in today's Herald about a letter sent by a number of women's groups to Nicola Sturgeon regarding recent comments she made in the press about the nature of opposition to gender recognition reform. heraldscotland.com/news/24813000.… The letter was co-signed by us, @ForWomenScot, @Scot_Feminists, @ScotLesbians, @WRNScotland, @VoteWithOurFeet and @WWWheesht.

Our statement on Police Scotland's recording policy U-turn. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2024/09/25/sta… A letter from Police Scotland has just been published by the Scottish Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee. It states: ‘The Committee should be absolutely assured that a man who commits rape or serious sexual assaults will be recorded as a male’. parliament.scot/-/media/files/…

Today we are publishing ‘A Woman’s Guide to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021’. The Act, which creates a new offence of ‘stirring up hate’ in relation to ‘transgender identity’, came fully in force from 1 April 2024. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2024/04/07/a-w… There is a concern that the Act coming into force will increase complaints about what women say and a lot of uncertainty about how readily the police will respond to complaints by launching investigations.

🧵On 27 October 2023 we wrote to the Chief Constable Jo Farrell, raising our concerns about Police Scotland policies on gender identity, and asked for a meeting to discuss these. The letter was sent onto DCC Speirs in his capacity as lead for Professionalism, lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and the Policing Together portfolio. An in-person meeting was arranged for 31 January 2024, at Police Scotland Headquarters, Tulliallan.

In 2020, we wrote about how the long-time existence of a UK-wide offence of stirring up racial hatred was being used to play down or attack concerns about extending stirring up offences to a wider range of characteristics. 1/9
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2020/08/28/the… This offence was regarded in 1986 as being uniquely necessary for race. In its submission to the 2018 Scottish review, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights opposed the extension of the stirring up offence to other groups based on absence of clear evidence of need. 2/9

As covered in today's @heraldscotland, the Scottish Prison Service took deliberate steps to avoid disclosing the operational guidance on its trans prisoner policy under Freedom of Information law, ahead of the policy going live. heraldscotland.com/news/24132893.… The SPS was aware the operational guidance would be subject to FOI requests once it had published the main policy. Under FOI law public authorities can, however, refuse to disclose information if they plan to publish it within 12 weeks.

We are quoted in this Sunday Post article on the Scottish Prison Service transgender prisoner policy, and its report detailing female prisoner and staff views, which the SPS refuses to publish. The SPS has taken 5 years to develop a policy that ignores routine safeguards based on what sex a person is, designed to protect women. It has done so to benefit a small group of male prisoners who have told prison managers that they believe themselves to be women.

NEW: Our latest blog looks at the Police Scotland LGBT Allies Toolkit, and questions how a scheme that asks officers to ‘evangelise their allyship’ to certain groups can be reconciled with a commitment to police impartiality. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2023/10/20/eva… What at first glance might appear to be relatively anodyne commitments to creating ‘safe environments’, using ‘inclusive language’, and encouraging ‘diversity of thought’, take on a different tone, when the detail of what this means is examined.

THREAD: Bringing the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 into force.

It has been reported that the Act will be brought into force early next year. scottishlegal.com/articles/polic… As we described here, bringing the Act fully into force will need further regulations making in the Scottish Parliament. x.com/mbmpolicy/stat…

THREAD: Ahead of next week's judicial review of Section 35 Order issued in respect of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, this thread provides some practical information for those who wish to follow the case. The case starts on Tuesday 19 September, and is scheduled to last for 3 days. It will be held in the Outer House of the Court of Session, in front of a single judge (the Hon Lady Haldane).

NEW BLOG: We follow up an earlier analysis of cross-border communications over the GRR Bill, using new information accessed via a review of an FoI request, and material both governments have submitted to the forthcoming s35 court case. murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2023/09/12/sco… We found meetings were not held fortnightly, as described to the Scottish Parliament in April. There were ten meetings in total during the year. The previous FoI response omitted information held by the SG which would have made this clear.