GLASGOW — The Scottish parliament on Thursday passed reforms that will make it easier to legally change gender.
The contentious legislation, known as the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, finally passed with a comfortable majority after several bad-tempered late-night sittings during its final stages earlier this week.
Under the new law, transgender people as young as 16 will be able to legally change their gender through a self-identification system, with no medical diagnosis required.
Scotland will be the first part of the United Kingdom to have a self-ID process for changing gender. The process is already in use in 18 other countries, including Denmark and Ireland.
Tensions around the proposed changes saw the Scottish National Party, which leads the Scottish government, face vociferous opposition from some campaign groups and even from some of its own lawmakers.
SNP MSP Ash Regan, who held the post of community safety minister, resigned in October, citing concerns that the legislation “may have negative implications for the safety and dignity of women and girls.”
Regan and a handful of her SNP parliamentary colleagues rebelled against the party by voting against the final bill, which passed anyway by 86 votes to 39, thanks to support from the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrats.
Proponents of the reforms argue that safeguards will remain around the process of applying to legally change gender and that the specific legislation does not affect the provision of “single-sex” spaces and services.
Members of the U.K. government have also voiced concerns that the bill may infringe on policy reserved for the U.K. government under the terms of the devolution act that created the Scottish parliament.
In a statement released after the bill’s passage, Westminster Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack said the U.K. government will look closely at the “concerns that many people have” around the reforms and at the “ramifications for the 2010 Equality Act and other U.K. wide legislation.”
He added that the U.K. government could seek to block the bill “if necessary.”
