Scottish Parliament scraps 'sex' category from website after two trans MSPs elected
Data on how many MSPs are male or female has vanished from the Scottish Parliament's website.
Scottish Parliament authorities have removed the male and female categories from its website when members of the public search for MSPs.
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The move comes after the election of the first two trans MSPs at the election earlier this month.
Until this week, the official site provided an option to search for and list MSPs by factors including party affiliation and gender - male or female.
Last week as MSPs were sworn in, the filter was expanded to include a non-binary option for the Scottish Green MSP Q Manivannan, while their colleague Iris Duane, who identifies as a transwoman, was included on the female list.
But now the whole filter has been removed.
Susan Smith, Director of For Women Scotland, the group which won the Supreme Court case on biological sex, said the "option to search for female MSPs vanished overnight, and along with it, the record of women’s current and historical representation in parliament."
She said: “We are calling for women’s representation to be visible again on the parliament’s website. Women are 51 per cent of the population and our parliament should reflect that fact.”
And Dr Kath Murray, of policy collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, said the change had the effect of "obscuring" female representation.
She added: "There is no conceivable reason as to why the parliament should have stopped presenting data on MSPs by sex, nor any coherent reason as to why it needs revising. The case for recording and publishing robust data on sex is clearly set out in the Sullivan Review.
“It is line with the legal framework set out in the Equality Act, and has been published in past sessions.
“The removal of this data not only obscures female representation within the parliament but raises serious questions about what appears to be eleventh-hour decision-making behind closed doors."
Holyrood has never reached equity among male and female MSPs, with the number of women MSPs reducing at the latest election, with just 55 women returned compared to 74 men - a fall from 45 per cent to 42.6 per cent since the last parliament.
The previous Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone launched a "gender sensitivity" review while in office, in an attempt to ensure more women had speaking time in the Chamber and tried to ensure at least 40 per cent of MSPs on the parliament's business bureau and corporate body were women - though those recommendations were not accepted by the parliament as a whole.
An Inclusive Parliament Review was also launched last term, and is yet to report fully. One part, a dignity and safety at work survey, found that parliament staff reported 84 incidents of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment since 2021.
A Scottish Parliament spokesperson said: “As part of the Inclusive Parliament Review, our systems and processes are currently under review.
"The online filter function on our website is a legacy system and we have taken steps to remove it.
“The review will also consider what personal information on members we need to publish and in what format.”
However the IPR, which is also looking at the provision of facilities in Holyrood, does not mention any need for the parliament's website to be altered.
LBC understands the issue of the website filters was brought to the Parliament authorities' attention at the end of last week.
The spokesperson said: “We are grateful to those who brought this to our attention.”