Steph Richards, founder of the website ‘Steph’s Place’ – a national website dedicated to feminist transgender women in the UK- has criticized current policies for transgender individuals.
Steph’s comments come after Parliament debated reforms to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, including those allowing transgender and non-binary individuals to be able to transition without a medical diagnosis of dysphoria.
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
Steph said: “Recently, the Human Rights Council of Europe called out the UK on trans rights in particular.
“Not because they’re being advanced, but because they’re being rolled back.
“The Gender Recognition Act came out in 2004, and at that time there was only one government-approved scheme.
“When they set it up, to transition you had to have two psychiatric reports: one from a doctor and one from a psychiatrist linked to the Gender Identity Clinics.
The Ministry of Justice, who administers the Gender Recognition Certificates, currently only allows them to be approved by a specific list of recognised psychiatrists .”
A Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) is a document that allows people to change their legal gender on their birth certificate.
Currently, if the person’s details are changed on their passport and driving license, without a Gender Recognition Certificate, when a transgender individual dies or gets married, their birth name and birth gender will be the ones used.
According to the Government, there is no robust data at present for the number of transgender individuals in the UK, but estimate the number to be between 200,000-500,000.
Steph added: “The knockback is the Gender Recognition Act.
“Only between 1%-3% of trans people have a GRC.
“Seventeen countries use self-identification; seven hundred million people worldwide enjoy it.
“We have the most draconian legal gender recognition laws in Western Europe.
“In reality, all the GRC does is allow trans people to get married and die, but there’s been a huge gender war.”
During the debate, Plymouth MP Luke Pollard said: “I do want us to look in particular at the process the GRA is causing difficulty on.
I share the concerns that have been raised more eloquently than I can about the difficulties in amassing the documents, the delay, the lack of a right of appeal, the confusion around it, the fear for many trans people of having a panel of they do not know deciding over their lives.”
From this debate, it was shared that Scotland is introducing reforms to its Gender Recognition Act "within the parliamentary year."
The news was shared in a tweet by Scot Gov Fairer, saying also: "Shona Robinson will give a statement to @ScotParl on 3 March on the introduction of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill."
Social Justice Secretary @ShonaRobison will give a statement to @ScotParl on 3 March on the introduction of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. We committed to introducing this Bill within this parliamentary year.
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