Charity Age UK has released guidance promoting ‘gender reassignment’ to pensioners, so that they feel comfortable in their ‘true’ gender.
‘Transgender issues and later life’ sets out the various ways older people can ‘change sex’ – from cross-dressing and changing name to hormone injections and major surgery.
It cites retirement or the death of a partner as an opportunity to undergo transition.
Cross-dressing
The guidance says: “You may be asking yourself if you are trans or where you sit on the trans ‘spectrum’”, adding: “Though many trans people have an inkling early in their life, some may find themselves asking such questions later in life.”
It also says: “If you identify as transsexual, you may want to consider if, and how, you wish to pursue ‘transition’.
“Do you wish to have hormone therapy, surgery and/or legal recognition of change of gender? None is a prerequisite for transition though many people proceed to pursue some, if not all, of these.”
Self-identification
In July, Theresa May launched a consultation on removing safeguards to legally change sex.
Currently, to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, an applicant must have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have lived as if a member of the opposite sex for two years.
But Mrs May says she wants to see “a process that is more streamlined and de-medicalised – because being trans should never be treated as an illness”.
This suggests the Prime Minister is in favour of a move towards ‘self-declaration’ – where a man can legally change sex simply by saying he is a woman, and vice versa.