Allowing people to be who and what they are, without fear of prejudice, is the hallmark of a civilised society

Those who come under the umbrella term transgender are definitely vulnerable. They include people who were registered as male or female at birth but who feel themselves to be members of the opposite sex.

Transgender also describes people whose gender is non-binary. If male is at one end of a spectrum and female at another, they see themselves as somewhere in between.

That’s the way life is for them. It’s how they were born or how they developed. But in Scotland, as in the UK, it doesn’t half make their lives difficult.

In other cultures such as in India, Nepal and Pakistan those who are transgender have long been accepted and recognised. They are a fact of life. It’s no big deal;

not here.

Here they suffer bullying and discrimination. Often they live in the shadows.

Here the decision formally to register as a member of the opposite sex to the one you were designated at birth is complicated. It requires evidence from a psychiatrist and proof that, for two years, the applicant has been living in that gender identity. The decision is then made by a judge-led panel.

Some people have surgery just to improve their chances. Last year we communally hung our heads in shame when the film The Imitation Game showed how an ignorant state chemically castrated Alan Turing for being homosexual. This year in The Danish Girl, the story of a transgender man set in 1920s, we will see how little we have developed in our acceptance for another minority group.

Why should a judge and a psychiatrist be required to corroborate what nature has already decreed?

I’m not the only one who wonders.

Maria Miller MP, chairwoman of the women and equalities committee at Westminster, headed a three-year inquiry into the subject. Its proposals, which will be published this month, will include a recommendation that people over 18 should be able to choose their own legal gender simply by filling in a form.

Last week Ms Miller also asked why gender needs to be defined on passports or driving licences.Why indeed?

Australia and Bangladesh haven’t had this requirement since 2011. New Zealand joined them in 2012. India doesn’t require it on the electoral role and Nepal hasn’t had it on the census since 2007.

Last year Ireland introduced a law allowing adults to choose their gender simply by filling in a form. It followed the example of Malta, Argentina and Denmark.

Meanwhile in Leeds last November, 21 year old Vikki Thompson committed suicide in a man’s prison following a failed attempt to be admitted to a woman’s jail. Vikki was born male but in her mid-teens identified herself as a woman. She had not undergone surgery.

Half of young "trans" people and one third of adults try to take their own life. The number of under-10s seeking treatment on the NHS quadrupled in the past five years.

So is one’s gender a private matter or should society retain the right to decide?

Gender identity is a subject that expands on closer inspection.

I have always been aware of people who have the body of a man but feel themselves to be a woman and vice versa. Their situation is described by the former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner. She said: "The uncomfortableness of being me never leaves me all day long."

That discomfort is exacerbated by the way society discriminates against those who are different.

When Germaine Greer called trans women "ghastly parodies" attempts were made to uninvite her from a speaking engagement at Cardiff University. The younger generation may have sinned against free speech but didn’t Greer also abuse it by taking a black and white, uncompassionate view of a complex issue? Was this an example of wilful blindness to gender subtleties?

We claim to be a free society, in an age of tolerance and with an emphasis on equal rights for all, so why can’t everyone be given their place<<p/>

James Morton of The Scottish Transgender Alliance is keen that any change in the law should benefit those who fall between genders. They must, he feels, be able to opt out of being defined as a man or a woman; to be permitted to be identified legally simply as human beings.

Vic, who is in this category, tried to explain how it feels. "Navigating a world which always expects you to fit neatly into two boxes ‘man’ or ‘woman’ can be incredibly difficult and distressing when these words and the expectations around them do not fit who you are."

(Our language too is binary so just writing that paragraph without using he or she was a minor challenge.)

Many of those who share Vic’s experience want to change the gender designation on their birth certificate and hope to have a third category to choose on official forms such as passport applications.

Ms Miller argues that we should go further and scrap the requirement to identify gender on job applications except when absolutely essential.

Most names are so gender specific it might not make a huge amount of difference. Applications could ask for first names as initials only. They could be submitted as a number. It would be interesting to see how much it also affected the current debate about discrimination between men and women candidates.

What matters most to James Morton is that the committee’s recommendations, once aired in detail, are not then lost in the long grass. He says that proposals won’t transform lives; legislation could.

I believe that the proposals will help, even if they go no further. They will help in the way that Caitlyn Jenner helped. They raise the profile of this issue just as the film The Danish Girl will do.

Every time we look and listen and read we understand better and are less likely to judge.

Vic says: "Almost all of my interactions with new people start with them making a split-second decision based on my appearance on whether I am a man or a woman; and if these are the only options people are aware of, then this means that unfortunately they always guess wrong."

I feel for Vic. I also feel for the people Vic meets. As I struggle again to avoid gender-specific pronouns I can see that compassion and understanding need to flow two ways.

That way the debate can open up and a new way forward established. It is an issue for us all because allowing people to be who and what they are – without fear of prejudice – is surely the hallmark of a civilised society.