Scottish Parliament restores online gender search for MSPs

The Scottish Parliament has reinstated the option to search for MSPs by their sex on its website.

It comes after the Holyrood authorities invited the new intake to complete a survey about their sex, and where appropriate, their trans status.

A total of 62 MSPs responded – including a number who did not consent to their data being published, meaning it is listed as “undisclosed”.

The removal of the search function shortly after the election led to some MSPs complaining that women had been “erased” from the website.

Before the 7 May election, Holyrood had a search filter sorting MSPs by gender, with male and female listed as options.

Within a few days of the Holyrood vote this was updated to include a non-binary option. However, this function was removed a few days later.

A parliament spokesperson said at the time that the filter was a “legacy system” that had been removed as part of an ongoing Inclusive Parliament Review.

Two Scottish Green MSPs, Iris Duane and Q Manivannan, became the first openly trans members at Holyrood following the May election.

Manivannan also identifies as non-binary.

Under the latest change, visitors to the Scottish Parliament website are once again able to search by sex, as well as trans status – though no MSP has consented to their trans status being published online.

A note on the search function says that “sex is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and refers to a male or a female of any age”.

It adds: “For the purposes of the 2010 Act, ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’ refer to biological sex.”

The sex of 73 MSPs – including Duane and Manivannan – is listed as “undisclosed”, meaning they either did not complete the survey or did not give permission for their information to be published.