Equalities Minister: Gender self-ID ‘wouldn’t be right’

The Minister for Women and Equalities has said people should not be allowed to change their legal sex merely on the basis of self-identification.

Liz Truss MP, who holds the equalities brief alongside her position as Foreign Secretary, told The Telegraph that “medical checks are important” and that “it wouldn’t be right to have self identification with no checks and balances in the system”.

Currently, anyone seeking to ‘change sex’ must have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and have lived as though they were a member of the opposite sex for at least two years. Truss said this existing process is “the right approach”.

Biological fact

The Minister also hit out at the “absurdity of identity politics” and gave her support to Labour MP Rosie Duffield who has been under fire for stating that “only women have a cervix”.

Truss said Duffield “is right, that women have cervixes. But more than that, she’s also right to be able to express her view.

“I think when we try and brush things under the carpet and can’t have an open, honest and sensible debate, I think that’s a huge problem for British politics.”

Threats

Last month, House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle hit out at trans activists for threatening Duffield following her defence of biological sex. The Labour MP did not attend her Party Conference due to the abuse she received.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer later faced criticism for claiming on The Andrew Marr Show that it is “not right” to say that “only women have a cervix”.

He was supported by his front bench colleague Emily Thornberry but Health Secretary Sajid Javid called his comments a “total denial of scientific fact”.