James Kirkup James Kirkup

Why Liz Truss’s trans promise matters

Photo by Peter Summers/Getty Images

It seems odd to be writing about the transgender debate amid the coronavirus crisis, but in some ways, it’s important that normal life, where possible, goes on amid that crisis. That is one good reason for parliament returning to business this week.

That business includes Commons select committee hearings on things other than coronavirus. Today, Liz Truss was at the Women and Equalities Select Committee in her role as minister for equalities, overseeing the Government Equalities Office. That brief includes the trans issue and the – postponed, possibly forever – reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Truss’s opening remarks to the committee were interesting and worthy of attention because she chose to enter the most contentious aspect of this debate: children.

It is now widely understood that there has been a significant rise in the number of children presenting at NHS clinics dealing with gender issues. Some – not all – of those children will end up on a path that includes puberty-blocking drugs then, later in life, cross-sex hormone treatment and surgery.

This worries a lot of people who question whether children are capable of giving proper, informed consent for medical interventions that can have lasting and sometimes unknown effects. For instance, puberty-blocking medications (not designed for such use) given to children might reduce fertility in adulthood. Among some of the feminist campaigners and worried parents who have sought to raise public awareness of these issues, there is a grim truism: ‘A transgender child is like a vegetarian cat. You know who’s really making the decisions.’

This, it should be said, is a view hotly disputed by campaigners for trans youth and some doctors, who say that people under 16 are perfectly capable of informed consent. Indeed, there is legal backing for that position, in the form of ‘Gillick competence’, a standard based on a 1985 House of Lords ruling. 

This is a fraught, complex and sometimes alarming topic

Anyway, this is a fraught, complex and sometimes alarming topic.

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