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Government Confirms It Will Not Allow Trans People To Self-ID

The government has confirmed that it will not allow trans people to change their legal gender via self-identification.

More than 100,000 people, including some 7,000 trans people, responded to a consultation on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 in 2017, and the community has been left waiting for an official response from the government ever since.

It was reported in June that measures drawn up under Theresa May’s government to enable trans people change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis had officially been dropped, a move that human rights organisation Amnesty International described as “extremely worrying”.

In a statement released on Tuesday morning, Conservative Liz Truss, the minister for women and equalities, said that changes would not be made to the GRA legislation, writing: “There are proper checks and balances in the system and also support for people who want to change their legal sex.”

A reform to the Act could have seen self-identification introduced for trans people across the country.

Instead, Truss said the process of accessing a Gender Recognition Certificate would be made “kinder and more straightforward” – namely by moving the process online and reducing the £140 fee to a “nominal” amount.

Truss also said three new gender clinics would be opened in 2020, adding that their introduction “should see waiting lists cut by around 1,600 patients by 2022” in a bid to address distressingly long waiting times for before trans people can access NHS services.

Cara English, head of public engagement at Gendered Intelligence, said: “After years of hand-wringing, the government has today laid out its intention to make surface-level changes to the Gender Recognition Act. This won’t come as a shock to most interested parties, but it is nevertheless disappointing in its scope.

The government has formally responded to a 2017 consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. 
The government has formally responded to a 2017 consultation on the Gender Recognition Act.

“We welcome the step in the right direction to lower the financial barrier facing people wishing to apply for a...

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