Non-Binary Working Group minutes: 1 March 2022

Attendees and apologies

Attendees

• Bobby Jones, Facilitator

Group members

• Dr Ben Vincent, The Open University
• Vic Valentine, Scottish Trans
• Oceana Maund, Scottish Trans
• Megan Snedden, Stonewall Scotland
• Katrina Mitchell, LGBT Health & Wellbeing
• Sarah Anderson, LGBT Youth Scotland
• Dr Carolynn Gray, The University of the West of Scotland
• Non-Binary community members

Secretariat

• Keir McDonald, Equality and Inclusion Division, Scottish Government
• Chloe Coldwell, Equality and Inclusion Division, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Key discussion points

The group discussed:

Healthcare

• potential misunderstanding of what the group means by training as the recommendation would refer to specialist knowledge on treating trans patients rather than diversity and inclusion training
• the need to clarify that trans healthcare does not just refer to gender identity services

Young people

• the data on under 16s collected in the census being potentially unreliable as parents/guardians complete on behalf of their children under 16 years old

Outstanding policy feedback on recommendations

• tightening the recommendations which say “ensure”.
• the importance of proactively engaging with trans and non-binary people when looking to include them and remunerating them for their time and expertise, giving an example from NHS England website

Report presentation

• considering the impact the group wanted the report to have on different audiences
• the inclusion of anonymous personal stories in the final report and a potential “trans-101” style section to make it more accessible to a general audience
• prioritising the recommendations within general categories

• avoiding breaking the recommendations down into short and long term
• creating a two-page concise report that lists the recommendations alone to accompany the report
• the wide-reaching nature of the recommendations and how they will affect equality work for many groups

Timeline for next steps

• if the response was within 6 weeks then the recommendations and response could be published together
• working group members will be notified in advance of publication
• a debrief session will be organised shortly

Actions

• confirm definitive deadlines with officials for policy opinions after the receipt of the recommendations
• organise debrief session
• confirm that working group members must see the report before publication