Does Scotland's New Gender Law Put Women at Risk?

Convicted male sex offenders can self-identify and serve their sentences in women's prisons.

After a contentious public debate, today the Scottish parliament passed by a wide margin the final element in putting Scotland at the forefront of progressive transgender legislation. Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon — who this past May refused to define the word woman during a newspaper interview -  spearheaded the controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill. And she brokered no dissent in her own Scottish National Party. When another member of parliament, Joanna Cherry, opposed the bill, Sturgeon sacked her as the Justice and Home Affairs spokesperson. Cherry claimed many others in Parliament had serious reservations but were “scared to speak out in this debate because when you do speak out, you're often wrongly branded as a transphobe or a bigot.”

At the legislation’s core is self-identification. It permits anyone to change their birth certificate and gender status by proclaiming a different gender than the sex assigned at birth. With Self-ID, Scotland joins fifteen countries — inclu…