Labour Pledges To Simplify Gender Transition Process If It Wins Election
Labour has pledged to “simply” the gender transition process if it wins the general election next week.
The party says the current law is “intrusive and outdated” and needs urgent reform.
At the moment, transgender people must provide two years’ worth of documentation showing they have changed genders before they can be given a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
Under the Labour proposals, anyone seeking to change gender will instead have to go through a two-year cooling-off period after applying for a GRC.
Another major change will see GRC applications signed off by a single specialist doctor rather than a panel of medics and lawyers, as is the case at the moment.
A Labour spokesman said: “Labour will modernise, simplify and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process.
“We will remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance; while retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a specialist doctor, enabling access to the healthcare pathway.
“Britain is a reasonable and tolerant society where most people know that there are a small number of individuals who do not identify with the gender that they were born into.
“Labour’s plans will protect single-sex spaces, treat everybody with respect and dignity, maintain the existing two-year time frame for gender recognition, and ensure that robust provisions are in place to protect legitimate applications.”
But Kemi Badenoch, minister for women and equalities, said: “These proposals unravel all the protections in the current system designed to protect women and girls. This change creates more loopholes for predators and bad faith actors to infiltrate women-only spaces and put us at risk.
“Labour have never understood or cared about this issue or the vulnerable women impacted by their policies. As JK Rowling, a Labour supporter herself, has said, Labour show a ‘dismissive and often offensive’ approach to the concerns of women, illustrated by the contempt with which they treat their own MPs like Rosie Duffield.
“Labour’s promise of change is definitely change for the worse.”
Labour’s announcement came after more criticism of the party’s trans policies from Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
She said the party had “abandoned” women over its stance on the rights of transgender people.
