Proposals on gender change to be scrapped
Self-identification plan to be dropped, but it may be easier for trans people to change birth certificate
‘Modernising how people legally change their gender is overdue and should include cutting red tape’
THE Government is poised to scrap plans to make it easier for people to “self-identify” their gender, but birth certificate changes could be made easier in an attempt to soften the blow.
Liz Truss, Women and Equalities Minister, is expected to officially confirm that the proposals have been ditched as early as Thursday in response to a public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act.
The plans were originally drawn up under Theresa May’s government to enable transgender people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis.
While self-identification is expected to be dropped, it will be made easier for transgender people to change their gender on their birth certificate, The Sunday Times reports.
It is understood that Ms Truss will announce the result of the consultation in an oral statement in the Commons later this week or early next.
According to reports, around 70 per cent of responses to the public 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.
The Government is also preparing to ban “gay cure” therapies, which would end controversial church group and therapist conversion courses.
Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry and pop star Dua Lipa have supported calls for “conversion therapies” to be made illegal in the UK. All three added their names to a 200,000-strong open letter to Ms Truss, which calls for an end to the treatments “for all lesbian, gay, bi, trans and gender diverse people in the UK”. The Government is also expected to set out new safeguards to protect female-only spaces such as refuges and public lavatories.
John Cope, deputy chair of LGBT+ Conservatives, warned that scrapping self-identification could be a “Section 28 moment”, comparing it to the law passed by Margaret Thatcher in 1988 that banned councils and schools from promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality.
Mr Cope told The Daily Telegraph: “Modernising how people legally change their gender is overdue and should in my view include cutting red tape, scrapping the unfair fees, and reducing years-long waiting lists.
“Most importantly though, we need to stop treating being trans as a mental health condition.”
Nancy Kelley, the chief executive at LGBT+ rights organisation Stonewall, said the reforms “would have made many trans people’s lives much easier”.
She said: “This is another blow to our community during a difficult time. Trans people face a huge amount of abuse in their daily lives, just for being themselves. Across issues like access to healthcare, fair treatment in the justice system and the ability to have their voices and stories heard in public life, trans people experience profound inequalities.”
Under current rules, those wanting to change their gender pay £140 and produce two medical reports that they have suffered from gender dysphoria.
Reports originally suggested that self-identification would be scrapped last month, but a government source suggested the story had been briefed by ministers who were “trying to stampede a decision that has not been taken”.