No 10 may scrap plan to allow ‘easy’ legal gender change

DOWNING STREET could scrap plans to make it easier to allow people to change their legal gender by “self-identifying” as male or female, it has been reported. The proposals are said to have been ditched in a leaked paper setting out the Government’s response to a public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act.

The plans were drawn up under Theresa May’s government to enable transgender people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis.

The Sunday Times said that the consultation paper was “basically ready” and was being slated for publication by Women and Equalities Minister Liz Truss at the end of July. However, a government source suggested that the story had been briefed by ministers who were “trying to stampede a decision that has not been taken”.

No10 insisted that the issue of selfidentification was “still being worked on” and said “no decisions” had been made. However, it was confirmed yesterday that the Government was preparing to announce a ban on “gay cure” therapies, which would end controversial church group and therapist conversion courses.

Plans are also understood to be underway to set out new safeguards to protect female-only spaces, including refuges and public lavatories.

A No10 source said: “There is a consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. We had 100,000 responses to the consultation that will report back in due course, probably before the summer.

“The top priorities are the protection of single-sex spaces and making sure that transgender adults are free to live their lives as they wish without fear of persecution whilst maintaining proper checks and balances within the system.”

According to reports, around 70 per cent of responses to the consultation were in favour of allowing people to self-identify as a man or a woman.

However, officials were said to believe that the results had been “skewed” by an “avalanche” of responses generated by trans rights groups.

A source told the paper: “In terms of changing what is on your birth certificate, you will still need to have proper medical approval. And you’re not going to be able to march in and find a hippie quack doctor who is willing to say you’re a woman. That’s not going to happen.”

The reports have sparked criticism from LGBT activists.