Trade union giant GMB has written to the Minister for Women and Equalities calling for radical changes to gender recognition law to allow people to ‘self-identify’ their legal sex.
The letter, sent to Liz Truss on behalf of the union’s 620,000 members, asks the Government “to reform the Gender Recognition Act” (GRA) to allow a person to ‘change sex’ by “self-declaration”.
Currently, anyone seeking to change legal sex must have lived for two years as a member of the opposite sex and have been medically diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Union claims
The letter, signed by both the Acting General Secretary and President of the GMB Union, urges the Government to press ahead with amending the GRA, claiming existing safeguards are “barriers to legal recognition”.
It claims it would be “regressive and discriminatory” to prevent a man living as a woman from accessing single-sex facilities and services.
Alongside the union leaders, the letter is also signed by a spokesperson for GMB Shout!, a “self-organised network and committee” of LGBT people with 305 members on Facebook.
Reform halted
Earlier this year, The Sunday Times reported that proposals to allow people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis would be shelved.
According to the newspaper, the details were contained in a leaked paper setting out the Government’s response to a public consultation on the GRA.
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