Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 January 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how it will define the circumstances in which someone fraudulently claims to be transgender, should the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill be passed, not including issues concerning official documentation.
There is provision in section 9 of the draft Bill that an application can be made to the sheriff court to revoke a gender recognition certificate on the ground that the application for the certificate was fraudulent. There is already provision in section 8 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (which would be replaced for Scotland by the provision in section 9 of the draft Bill) which enables the courts to quash a gender recognition certificate on the ground that it was secured by fraud. It would be for the courts to determine whether or not an application was fraudulent, as has been the position under the 2004 Act. Some non-exhaustive situations which might result in a suggestion that an application was fraudulent could include the spouse or civil partner of the applicant saying they believe the application to be fraudulent; information being passed to the Registrar General suggesting the application was fraudulent; and the applicant boasting they had made a false declaration or application to test the system.