Transgender Equality

Part of Backbench Business – in the House of Commons at 1:02 pm on 1 December 2016.

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Photo of Kirsten Oswald Kirsten Oswald Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Armed Forces and Veterans) 1:02, 1 December 2016

That is an incredibly valuable comment. This is about all of us. We must all support people who need our support and are entitled to it. After all, there may come a time when we need the support of others. We do not need to look too far away to find that intolerance and misinformation can be spread by people who are in positions of power and should know so very much better than to peddle nasty, divisive nonsense.

I was interested by the comments of my hon. Friend Carol Monaghan about schools. The influence of education and supportive schools was key to the experience of the young women I talked about. Their support for the TIE—Time for Inclusive Education—campaign interested me. Inclusive education pays off hugely by advancing equality and making sure that all our children—and, by extension, all adults—have opportunities to achieve their potential. For far too long, transgender, non-binary and non-gendered people have experienced discrimination, disbelief and far, far worse. Young people are the key to transforming our society, and we need to support them fully to do that.

I end with some wise words from one of the ladies on the radio programme: no one size fits all. We do not expect that to apply to any other aspect of our identity, so why on earth should it apply to gender? That is what this comes down to. We are all a sum of our parts. All our identities are complex, but fundamentally people are just people. We are all different and our legislation must reflect that. Those principles are set out in Scotland’s national plan for human rights, which actively defends the right of everyone in society to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect.