Gender Self-identification

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on moving the motion on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

I will focus on the text of the petition by talking specifically about what a gender recognition certificate is and is not needed for. A person does not need a gender recognition certificate to update their driving licence, passport, medical records, employment records or bank account, and they do not need one to go into a toilet or changing room—nor do they need a birth certificate to go into a toilet or changing room, I hasten to add.

The point of a gender recognition certificate is to allow someone to update their birth or adoption certificate. That allows them the human right of privacy. A gender recognition certificate allows someone to get married or form a civil partnership in their affirmed gender. Again, it allows them that privacy; it allows them and their partner to have the correct genders on their marriage or civil partnership agreement. A gender recognition certificate also allows someone to update their marriage or civil partnership certificate.

A gender recognition certificate also allows someone to have their affirmed gender on their death certificate. Imagine if your partner, father, mother or child died and they had to have the wrong gender on their death certificate. Imagine how that would compound the misery you are already feeling.

Those are the things that a gender recognition certificate allows someone to do. It might also change their pension entitlements, which is really important for people who are not getting the correct pension entitlements, particularly if their partner dies.

People can apply to have a gender recognition certificate even if they have not had any surgery or treatment. The hon. Member for South Cotswolds mentioned the issues with gender-affirming care and gender identity clinics, and the extremely long waiting times even for initial appointments. Imagine if people did not have to have a gender dysphoria diagnosis to apply for a gender recognition certificate; they would not even need to see the gender identity clinic should they not wish to.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that other jurisdictions have implemented the self-declaration of legal gender without any detriment, and without any of the debates we have had in this country even without those reforms? For instance, Ireland has had an Act providing for the self-declaration of legal gender for 10 years. Is it not time that we moved with those other jurisdictions?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I completely agree. As the hon. Member for South Cotswolds said, there is still a legal requirement not to lie, with powers to punish people who lie when applying for a gender recognition certificate.

Across these islands, very few medical practitioners are competent, trained and working in this area. If we freed up some of their clinical time, the people who need gender-affirming surgery and treatment would get it far more quickly. The queue would shorten because those seeking a gender recognition certificate would not need a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

The Government could also choose to put other rules in place, and there are already other rules for getting a gender recognition certificate. The petition focuses on the gender dysphoria diagnosis, but it does not focus on the fact that people have to provide two years’ worth of evidence. The Government could still require that people provide evidence for every three-month period in at least the previous two years showing them using the title of Mr, Mrs or Ms, showing them using their new name, and proving that they have been living in that gender. The Government could still require all that while taking out the requirement for a gender dysphoria diagnosis, which would make things so much better for people.

As the hon. Member for South Cotswolds and a number of other hon. Members have said, what has happened around the Supreme Court ruling has made things even more complicated and confusing for people—it has not provided clarity. We are now in a weird limbo situation where huge numbers of pubs, restaurants and shops, which are just trying to do their best, do not know what they have to do. They have the interim guidance, which is frankly not very clear, the Court ruling and the Equality Act to look at, but they do not know what toilets they should be providing.