Edinburgh (AFP) - A minister in Scotland's devolved government resigned on Thursday over planned gender recognition legislation which has pitted First Minister Nicola Sturgeon against Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Scottish National Party (SNP) lawmaker Ash Regan, the minister for community safety, wrote in a resignation letter that she could not vote for her party's Gender Recognition Reform Bill as her conscience would "not allow" it.
"I have considered the issue of gender recognition reform very carefully over some time," she stated.
"I have concluded that my conscience will not allow me to vote with the government at stage 1 of the bill this afternoon."
The draft law aims to speed up the time it takes for transgender people seeking to obtain a gender recognition certification.
It also lowers the age for obtaining the documentation from 18 to 16, and drops the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.That is the term used to describe the sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity, according to Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
The SNP government in Edinburgh instructed its lawmakers to back the bill, and it passed easily later on Thursday to applause from the majority who supported it.
- 'Slurred as bigots' -
Sturgeon said in an earlier interview that it aimed to reform a degrading and traumatic process for transgender people and those who want to change their gender legally.
"It doesn't give any additional rights to trans people, nor does it take any rights away from women," she told BBC radio.
"It's men who attack women and we need to focus on that, not on further stigmatising and discriminating against a tiny group in our society who are already one of the most stigmatised."
But critics say self-identification will undermine women's sex-based rights, with access to women-only spaces one of the highly contentious associated issues.
Earlier this month Rowling, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, tweeted a picture of herself wearing a t-shirt reading: "Nicola Sturgeon: Destroyer of women's rights".
Rowling, who was backing a protest outside the Scottish Parliament over the legislation, tweeted: "I stand in solidarity with @ForWomenScot and all women protesting and speaking outside the Scottish Parliament #NoToSelfID."
Rowling has been accused of being transphobic and subjected to threats on social media since publishing a controversial essay on gender identity in 2020.
In the essay, Rowling said she was a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor and that she held concerns around single-sex spaces.
"I'm mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces," she wrote.
