Record number of gender-confused people apply to ‘change sex’

A record number of people in the UK applied to change legal sex last year, according to latest figures.

The Ministry of Justice has reported that the Gender Recognition Panel received 1,397 applications between 2023 and 2024, 1,088 (77.9 per cent) of which were granted.

The annual number of applications has increased dramatically since 2021, when the application fee was reduced from £140 to £5, with the process also being moved online in 2022. There were 466 applications in 2020-2021, but this has jumped to 802, 1,240 and 1,397 in the following years.

Increase

In order to legally change sex, a person must have lived as if they are a member of the opposite sex for two years. Two medical diagnoses of gender dysphoria are also required, one of which must be from a specialist, and the application must be approved by a panel.

But it is expected that applications may further increase in light of the Government’s plans to make the procedure easier.

Labour’s manifesto pledged to “modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process”, while “retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a specialist doctor”.

Single-sex spaces

Last year, the party dropped an earlier pledge to allow people to change legal sex by self-declaration.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Sir Keir Starmer declared that a “woman is an adult female”, and Labour doesn’t think “self identification is the right way forward”.

The party leader said its National Policy Forum “gave us the chance to reflect on what happened in Scotland recently”, and “allowed us to be clear that there should be safe places, safe spaces, for women, particularly in relation to violence against women and girls”.

He said the case of convicted rapist Adam Graham, who was initially placed in a Scottish women’s jail, explains why women “want a safe space where they can feel that they are properly supported and protected”.