Self-identification of Gender

Debate between Layla Moran and David T C Davies

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered proposals to allow self-identification of gender.

I thank you in advance for your chairmanship and guidance, Mr Hosie. Following our conversation earlier this morning, I am fully aware that this is a sensitive issue. I have concerns about self-identification of gender, but they are not in any way directed at anyone who is unfortunate enough to suffer from some form of gender dysphoria. I have met many trans women who share my concerns about this and want nothing to do with the kind of activism that seems to be going on and shutting down debate. The criticisms I have are of Government, Ministers and politically motivated organisations, many of which have access to public funds.

The law at the moment is that anyone who wishes to change their legal gender has to apply to the Gender Recognition Panel. They have to show a number of things, including that they have lived as their preferred gender for two years and have been diagnosed with some form of gender dysphoria. They also have to commit to living as their new gender for the rest of their life. One thing that they do not have to do is undergo any form of medical treatment or surgery. They do not even have to be taking any hormone pills. The vast majority of people who change gender maintain the body in which they are born. As far as I can find from the statistics, only one in five people who have changed gender have had any form of surgery. This is the cause of concern for many people.

Self-definition of gender is already happening. Organisations seem to be ahead of the law, which the Government may or may not be about to change. There is a particular concern about what is going on in schools with children. Guidance is being given to schools by publicly funded organisations such as Mermaids and others encouraging children to question their gender and redefine it if they wish. They can do so without their parents even being told about it. That can quickly set off a chain of events that can begin with children as young as 12 being given puberty blockers, about which there are many medical concerns. At least one doctor in my constituency has been giving these drugs out to children as young as 12. That can then progress on to hormone blockers, which have powerful and irreversible side effects. Once people start on that road, there is a danger that they may end up having more drastic and irreversible surgery, because once one is on that pathway, it becomes difficult to get off it.

Teachers who have tried to question what is going on or who have fallen foul of the activist groups are liable to find themselves being disciplined. A teacher called Joshua Sutcliffe was disciplined by a school in Oxford for committing the offence—a new one on me—of misgendering a group of pupils. He had apparently said, “Well done, girls”, after a maths exam, although one of the girls identified as a boy. For that, the teacher was disciplined.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

That incident happened in my community. I would like to point out that how the hon. Gentleman is portraying the incident is far simpler than the bigger issues surrounding it. It was not just a single incident; there were a number of incidents with that teacher, not only in that specific case but in other parts of the school. I remind him that these things are sometimes over-simplified. Does he agree that over-simplification of such a sensitive and complex issue sometimes is not helpful?

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady is right, but if I over-simplify, it is partly so that she can have a chance to speak. We have only 90 minutes, and this is the first time we have debated the issue properly in the House of Commons. I look forward to hearing her longer explanation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

No, because as I said at the start, organisations such as prisons and schools are ahead of the law. They are already allowing self-identification of gender. There was certainly a failure of risk assessment with the case I mentioned. Shortly after it happened and the court case concluded, I asked the head of probation and prisons in Wales whether there had been any change to the guidance given to prison authorities about housing transgender prisoners, and I was told that there had not. I subsequently sought an urgent question about that, because, as I hope the hon. Lady would agree, it is appalling that vulnerable female prisoners, many of whom have been victims of male violence, are being put at risk in this fashion. It was not deemed important enough to be discussed in Parliament.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman is gracious to give way to me for a second time. May I clarify whether his assertion is that prisons and schools are doing something illegal under the current Gender Recognition Act 2004?

[David T. C. Davies]

No, I have not asserted that at all. I have said that prisons and schools are allowing self-identification of gender at the moment. The law may well change shortly following the consultation, to give that a legal footing and to allow people to legally register their gender as being different from the one they are born with. The practicality is that that is already happening. I have made that point several times.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) on securing this debate. Although we are perhaps on opposite sides on some of the issues, I agree absolutely that not enough debate has been had in this House on this matter.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate today, especially because it is Trans Awareness Week. Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day when we are meant to remember the huge inequalities and the number of transgender people who have died over the years because of the oppression that they faced. I hope the Minister will join me today in solidarity with the community that over the past few months has had inordinate amounts of abuse hurled at it from all quarters. However, today is an opportunity to shed some light rather than heat on this debate, particularly on the issues that underpin some of that heat.

I want to place on the record my thanks to my Liberal Democrat colleague and friend, Helen Belcher, whom I have worked with closely on this matter. I also want to place it on the record that I am wholeheartedly behind the Government’s proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I believe that they are proportionate and well thought through. It is time that Britain caught up with many other countries around the world—a point I will come to later.

That said, I absolutely appreciate the sincerely held concerns of not just the hon. Gentleman but many other people, including constituents who have contacted me to say that they are worried about aspects of the proposals. My constituent Juliette said:

“I am frightened by the fact that women’s voices are being dismissed and silenced”.

My constituent Nicola wrote:

“It’s taken me several days to build up the courage to email you for fear of being labelled transphobic or hateful and believe me, I am not—I fully support the rights of the trans community to live their life without discrimination”.

It is a damning indictment on not just us, although we politicians need to take responsibility for shying away from what is a controversial and sensitive issue, but on the media, which I do not believe have treated the issue with fairness on either side. In today’s debate and moving forward, we need to try to bring the two sides together, because I do not think there is a conflict between being a feminist and believing in trans rights.

Since my election in 2017, I have ensured that Ministers are aware of my constituents’ views on both sides of the debate. I particularly thank the Minister’s colleague in the other place, Baroness Williams of Trafford, for taking the time to meet me to discuss the issues. I have not attended the meetings organised by the hon. Member for Monmouth simply because I have been listening to my constituents and working on the issue in other ways. I take slight offence at the insinuation that because I have not attended his meetings I do not care deeply about the issue and have not been engaging in the debate.

I appreciate that Ministers are considering responses to the public consultation, but it would be encouraging to hear from the Minister about what steps the Government are taking to reassure people who are worried about the reform, and what active myth-busting is occurring, or is planned, regarding the misconceptions. That will be the crux of my speech.

It is important to put self-identification and self-declaration in the context of the Equality Act 2010. If we understand what that legislation allows, we can then talk about how the law might be reformed or changed. The Act protects people from discrimination on the basis of sex and gender reassignment, and describes the exemptions that allow single-sex spaces. Under the Act, it is a legitimate aim to provide safe spaces for women, but it is not proportionate to exclude all trans women from those spaces simply because they are trans, which is an incredibly important point. Furthermore, the Act protects those who have undergone, are undergoing, or are proposing to undergo a process, or part of a process, of reassigning their gender.

It is probably worth mentioning the sorts of interventions and operations that some trans people choose not to have. First, that is their medical choice to make. Secondly, think for a moment of the extensive operations that would need to happen. Many trans people are put off simply because it is painful, and in some cases expensive. Sometimes they feel unable to have operations because only a certain number of licensed practitioners in the country are allowed to perform them. Some trans people prefer to go abroad to have them, but that is not recognised in this country. There are many complex reasons behind the 93% figure. The proposed reforms would go some way to removing some of those barriers.

[David T. C. Davies]

I hear what the hon. Lady is saying. May I bluntly ask her whether she would be happy sharing a changing room with somebody who was born male and had a male body?

[Layla Moran]

I believe that women are women, so if that person was a trans woman, I absolutely would. I just do not see the issue. As for whether they have a beard, which was one of the hon. Gentleman’s earlier comments, I dare say that some women have beards. There are all sorts of reasons why our bodies react differently to hormones. There are many forms of the human body. I see someone in their soul and as a person. I do not really care whether they have a male body.

In essence, the Equality Act already works on the basis of self-declaration of gender, as it does for religion and sexuality. Coming back to the point that the hon. Gentleman made earlier about society being ahead of the Act, that is actually not the case; society is implementing the Act as it stands.

The concern voiced by some people that reforming the Gender Recognition Act to allow self-declaration would allow men into women’s spaces needs more discussion. Since my election, 12 constituents have contacted me on these issues, and that concern is a feature of all their correspondence. Other things come up, but that is the top concern. For example, Elizabeth says that she fears the

“risk of males choosing to change their legal gender in order to gain access to spaces and opportunities reserved for women”.

That is her main concern.

However, the Gender Recognition Act simply allows a trans person to change their birth certificate and have it reissued. It does not change what is in the Equality Act. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Monmouth did not want to take more interventions earlier, but my question to him would be: are we saying that we want to roll back the 2010 Act in the reforms? Allowing trans women into women-only spaces is provided for under that Act. If that is what is being questioned, it is a rolling back of the Act, and not a reform.

Let us think about what would happen if a man did self-declare as a woman using any of the gender recognition reform proposals, and then tried to enter a women-only space for nefarious purposes. This chap is so intent on doing that that he gets himself a new birth certificate. By the way, it is a fallacy that people can just say, “Oh, I’m going to decide this afternoon to change my gender.” Nothing in the reforms suggests that someone can just decide to do that on a whim one afternoon, or say, “In the morning I’m going to be a woman and in the afternoon I’m going to be a man,” or anything like that.

The proposed reforms are proportionate and considered. They are not knee-jerk and they understand that such decisions are some of the most personal that a human gets to make. It is about who they are and how they fundamentally identify. It is not something that people do lightly. However, let us say that someone did want to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree. Our laws were groundbreaking when they were introduced in 2004, but our law on gender recognition now lags behind those of other countries. It disadvantages trans people on some very questionable grounds.

I am not sure on what basis the people who raise concerns about gender recognition feel that it is wrong. It is one of our values that there should be a level playing field in our society. Society is evolving and becoming more complex, and we are rightly recognising more intricate parts of it.

It is incumbent on us as British politicians to protect minority groups and understand the issues that they face. The reforms are a logical next step in our evolving understanding of a very small and vulnerable group of people in this country. Yes, many are children when they first start to discover the situation, but as a former teacher and as the Lib Dem education spokesperson, I believe that schools are doing their utmost to make children feel that it is okay to be different and have a space in which they can discuss the issues. To suggest that that extends to encouraging them to change their gender is a step too far for the role of schools.

I am pleased to support the reforms of the Gender Recognition Act, as well as maintaining my support for women-only services, which remain vital for many. The points made about violence against women and about the need to protect women from men who sexually abuse them are absolutely right, but being a feminist and being a supporter of trans rights are not in conflict; the two can absolutely sit together. We need to look at the evidence, not just about what the law currently says, but—

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady says that she supports women-only services. By “women-only”, does she mean anyone who defines themselves as a woman?

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman brings me on to my next sentence. I was about to say that trans women are women. Moreover, trans rights are human rights.

I am very grateful for today’s debate, because it has allowed some of us to broaden and deepen the debate and to start to set the record straight.