So make that a hat-trick. The Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll on GRA reform in October showed a massive majority against legally-recognised gender self-ID, as did a Survation poll a few days ago for the policy analysis organisation Murray Blackburn Mackenzie. Now there’s also a brand new multi-question Panelbase poll commissioned by For Women Scotland which has produced the same outcome.
The format of the main self-ID question is closer to the Survation poll than to the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, because it’s binary-choice and asks whether people wishing to change their legal gender should need to be assessed by medical experts, or whether they should be able to self-identify. 71% think medical approval should be required, with only 29% in favour of self-ID. Without having seen the datasets yet, I’m not sure whether those are the figures after Don’t Knows were removed, or whether there wasn’t a Don’t Know option on this occasion. The equivalent figures in the Survation poll were 53% for a doctor’s approval being required, and 27% in favour of self-ID, with the remainder saying ‘Don’t Know’. The Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll had a four-option format, with 20% of respondents favouring self-ID, compared with a combined 58% for the three options which excluded the possibility of self-ID.
The results of two other questions from the For Women Scotland poll have been released so far. 33% of respondents think trans women who still have male genitalia should be allowed to access women’s changing rooms, hospital wards and refuges, with 67% saying they should be excluded. That’s substantively the same as one of the questions from the Scot Goes Pop poll (with a very similar result), but I would guess the reason it was asked was that my own question wasn’t so specific about “male genitalia”, and For Women Scotland probably wanted to see what effect a more direct question wording would have.
Just 27% of respondents think under-18s should be able to change their name and sex in school records without parental consent, while 73% think they should not.
My observation is once again the same. In a parliamentary democracy, it is entirely legitimate for MSPs to decide that they know better than the public, and to legislate in defiance of public opinion if they genuinely think it is the right thing to do. But what we do have a right to expect is that MSPs acknowledge that they are indeed disregarding the public’s wishes, rather than pretending that the sky is green and that the public are right behind them. The polling evidence is absolutely crystal-clear: Scottish voters overwhelming oppose legally-recognised gender self-ID and want the Scottish Government’s proposed change to the law to be rejected.
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