‘Concern’ over transgender law shake-up
PLANS to allow adults to change their gender legally without a doctor’s diagnosis sparked concern among Christian campaigners last night.
Education Secretary Justine Greening, who is also Equalities Minister, yesterday confirmed proposals for allowing men to identify themselves as women – and vice versa – are set to be included in a Gender Recognition Bill in the autumn.
They will be able to alter the birth certificates to reflect their new gender.
Rules forcing people to live for two years in their desired change before they can officially change sex will be scrapped.
Simon Calvert, a spokesman for The Christian Institute charity, criticised the plans.
He said: “It is worrying when the leaders of the main political parties are so out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people.
Humiliation
“We need to inject a dose of reality into these discussions about transgenderism before the current political fashion runs away with us altogether.
“Allowing men to self-identify as female without any medical diagnosis allows them to invade the privacy of women and girls.
“Where this policy has been tried in the US, women and young girls have experienced the fear and humiliation of finding themselves sharing toilet and changing facilities with men.
“Transgender people aren’t the only people with rights. Women have rights too.”
Ms Greening said the Government will consult the public about the proposals, designed to overhaul the current “complex” rules, later this year.
She said: “What we want to do is try and streamline the process, de-medicalise it and make it less intrusive. Fifty years after we began the de-criminalisation of homosexuality. Although we’ve had huge progress on LGBT rights, there are still areas like this where we think we can do more and we want to take those steps.”
Labour and the Liberal Democrats are expected to back the Government plans.
Ukip’s interim leader Steve Crowther claimed the announcement proved that the Tories had not abandoned the liberalism of former premier David Cameron.
He said: “When she re-branded them as the ‘nasty party’, Mrs May started down a road of destroying the Conservative Party as a political option for the country.
“After a brief period in which she masqueraded as a competent Conservative, she has once again emerged as a champion of the so-called Conservative modernisers, who admire Tony Blair, are philosophically indistinguishable from the Left-wing parties in Parliament and are bent on destroying our society.
“Thank God her true colours have been unveiled so quickly.
“This gives a chance for people who were fooled into backing the Conservative Party to get us out of Europe and protect British values to think again.”