Trans soldiers can live in female quarters
TRANSGENDER soldiers who were born male can live in female-only Army quarters, it has emerged.
Official papers on the recruitment and management of trans military personnel say the ‘determining issue’ when arranging accommodation is a soldier’s ‘affirmed’ gender – rather than their biological sex.
According to the documents, troops should have access to ‘toilet and changing room facilities appropriate to their affirmed gender’ as soon as their transition starts.
It also states that ‘under no circumstances’ should a transgender person be expected to use facilities for their ‘assigned gender’, meaning biological sex, after transitioning.
But sex-based rights campaigners have warned that allowing trans women to live in female- only Army accommodation was a ‘court case waiting to happen’.
One serving member of personnel told The Daily Telegraph that after she shared her concerns about a transgender member of the forces joining her squadron, a manager told her not to worry and claimed: ‘It’s not an issue as you can tell who are predators.’
Conservative MP Sarah Atherton, who oversaw a report examining sexual assault and harassment in the military, criticised the policy for being ‘unclear’ – and suggested the Ministry of Defence ‘ haven’t thought this through properly’. She said the guidance ‘allows predatory men to misuse the policy to continue this abhorrent behaviour’.
Ms Atherton, who served in the Intelligence Corps, said: ‘Having done extensive work around women in the Armed Forces, I am fully aware of the extent of sexual abuse that has gone on and continues to go on.’
She called for women to have ‘secure accommodation’ and ‘ safe spaces’ due to ‘poor sexual behaviour and misuse of power in the military’.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps is understood to be examining the issue as part of a review he has ordered into all of the military’s diversity and inclusion policies. Defence sources said the ‘majority’ of singlesex living accommodations had ‘lockable’ rooms with en-suites, insisting it was ‘rare’ for people of the opposite sex to share washing facilities. The MoD previously published a new Inclusive Language Guide warning members of the Armed Forces that using the words ‘woman’ and ‘female’ interchangeably ‘erases’ members of the trans community.
It states: ‘Referring to women as females is perceived by many as reducing a woman to her reproductive parts and abilities.
‘Not all women are biologically female, and the conflation of “female” to “woman” erases gender non-conforming people.’