Debbie Hayton Debbie Hayton

How to respond to the latest gender recognition inquiry

The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee launched yet another inquiry into Gender Recognition Act reform last week. Either they are gluttons for punishment, or this really matters to someone. This is the third time since 2015 that Westminster has asked the public what they think about gender recognition. When you add this to the two separate Scottish consultations, it becomes apparent that transgender inquiries are now an annual event.

For those new to all this, the Women and Equalities Committee opened the recognition debate in 2015. Their subsequent report – informed by only 208 responses – called for the checks and balances to be removed from the gender recognition process, effectively making legal sex a tick-box exercise. But that was not all. They recommended the process be opened up to under-18s and that women should lose any vestigial right to protect the boundaries of their spaces and associations from trans women who had filled in a form and ticked a box.

By the time Theresa May’s government launched its own consultation in 2018, word had gotten round and over 100,000 responses flooded in. Liz Truss, the current minister for Women and Equalities, finally presented the findings in September. Wisely, in my view, the government decided that applicants should continue to provide medical evidence to support their wish to change their legal sex. They government also understood the implications on the safeguarding of children and the importance of women’s boundaries. So, the age limit to change gender was not lowered, and service providers were reminded they could restrict access on the basis of biological sex.

Little more than a month later, the Committee are consulting again, and this time they want evidence. It is reasonable for them to do so, in their role of holding government to account.

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Written by
Debbie Hayton

Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist. Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum

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