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Our Unspun newsletter prompted response from readers when journalist Jody Harrison looked into the 'gotcha' question of 'what is a woman?' that politicians are often asked.
Read that here 👈
Today, a reader looks at the question from a legal standpoint.
Robin Irvine of Helensburgh writes:
"Jody Harrison (‘Does Swinney know the answer to the key question?’, Unspun, May 15) is to be commended for his fair and opinion-free piece on John Swinney’s attempt to answer the question “What is a woman?”
It is a question that has joined, at a more trivial level, “Will you be supporting England in the semi-final?” as questions cynically designed to create heat and a few cheap headlines rather than to further debate on what has become a vexed subject.
Given that the UK Gender Recognition legislation has been on the statute books since April 2005 one would have thought that we had a legal definition of a woman, and a man for that matter, already. If not, there is certainly a place for a reasonable debate.
However, the opinions of the First Minister, famous writers, Herald opinion columnists and any other “reasonable” people should be irrelevant. While they are entitled to their opinions it is not for anybody to tell the rest of us what should and shouldn’t be. The legal definition is an important part of our democracy in that it sets a standard and takes opinion out of the equation. Should it need to be updated it can be done by our elected lawmakers with proper professional advice.
This is a debate where people need to take a step back and stop stoking the fire. Opinion may sell newspapers and offer a reassuring source for the aforementioned “reasonable” people to exercise their confirmation bias but it is not solving any serious societal problems any time soon."
📨 Read more in our Letters page
Letters should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit submissions.
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