Alarm at ease of changing gender on driving licence
CAMPAIGNERS fear that changing gender on official documents is too easy and “pushes people further towards irreversible treatments”.
More than 16,200 have changed the detail on their driving licence since 2018 – a record 3,488 switched it last year, a rise from 2,467 in 2018, according to data obtained via the Freedom of Information Act from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
A spokeswoman for Bayswater, a support group for parents with transidentified children, said: “We have been concerned that for some years the DVLA has allowed vulnerable children and young adults to falsify their sex status on driving licences under the guise of ‘changing gender’.
Safeguarding
“This state endorsement of their identity change pushes them further towards irreversible treatments such as drugs and surgeries, and encourages risky behaviours such as accessing areas for the opposite sex among other serious safeguarding risks.”
A licence gender change requires a Gender Recognition Certificate, a deed poll document proving change of name or a statutory declaration from a solicitor or magistrate.
Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters which campaigns for clarity on sex in law and policy, said: “Along with passports, driving licences are popular with people seeking to bolster their claim to a ‘gender identity’ different to their sex.
“Such altered paperwork may be used by trans-identifying people to put pressure on service providers – such as gyms – to allow them into facilities for the opposite sex.
“The ease with which official documents can be altered is particularly concerning in light of Government plans for an overarching ‘digital identity’ system, which will rely on sources that are becoming less accurate and more unreliable by the day.”
Tory MP Nick Fletcher claimed that most people changing their gender on a licence were “likely to be vulnerable young adults”. This could include people with autism, mental health issues and difficult home backgrounds.
He added: “For the state to allow them to change the sex marker on their driver’s licence is colluding in their harm and dissociation from reality.We need legislation to stop this harmful practice.”
Driving licences and passports are frequently used as evidence when applying for a GRC, which legally recognises someone’s changed gender.
Caroline ffiske, of campaigners Conservatives for Women, said: “Adult gender clinics can use a changed gender marker on a driving licence as evidence that a vulnerable young adult is serious about wanting a sex change. ”