Govt finally drops gender self-ID plans

The Government has officially dropped its plans to make it much easier for people in England and Wales to change legal sex.

It originally consulted on enabling people to ‘change sex’ by self-identification back in October 2018, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and to have lived as though a member of the opposite sex for at least two years.

Following widespread opposition, Equalities Minister Liz Truss has now announced the only changes will be to reduce the £140 fee needed to receive a gender recognition certificate to a nominal amount, and to move the application process online. She also confirmed the rights for service providers to protect single-sex spaces would remain in place.

‘Right and proper’

The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director for Communications Ciarán Kelly welcomed the news, saying: “It is good to see that the Government has seen sense.

“Despite what certain activists would have people believe, legalising the self-identification of gender would have brought with it a swathe of problems, and it is right and proper that it has been rejected. The Gender Recognition Act remains fundamentally unchanged.

“But there’s more to do. Greater clarity is also needed to assure schools, sports clubs and the like that the law will support them in protecting single-sex spaces.”

‘Life-altering decisions’

He added: “The Government still needs to introduce better protections for under-18s. Tragically, too many are still being led to believe that they are somehow ‘trapped in the wrong body’.

“Some schools have fallen for the myth that gender is ‘on a spectrum’ or can be ‘non-binary’. There are even youngsters who have been pushed into life-altering decisions such as taking cross-sex hormones. All in the name of transgender ideology. This has to stop.”