Last year an inquiry was launched into the Reform of the Gender Recognition Act, following the Government’s response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation. Today, the Women and Equalities Committee have published their report.
Read it here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmwomeq/977/report.html
The report holds the UK Government accountable for falling short in its reform of the Gender Recognition Act. It is clear in its recommendations to address how outdated legalisation is failing our trans communities. The Gender Recognition Act requires urgent modernisation.
The Rainbow Project will continue to stand with Trans and Non-Binary people, we will continue to call for the removal of these outdated policies and practices.
We echo that comments that the length of time taken by the Government Equalities Office to respond to its own consultation and implement reforms in areas where there was support from a majority of respondents to the consultation is unacceptable.
The Rainbow Project welcome the recommendations are that the requirement of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and spousal veto in order to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate should be removed from the Gender Recognition Act.
We agree that we should be moving the process closer to a system of self-declaration, which has been in operation since 2015 in Ireland.
The Rainbow Project welcomes the recommendation for the removal of the requirement to have lived for a set period of time in a gender. This is based on outdated social gender constructs and stereotypes, it needs to be removed.
We wish to highlight that recent changes by the UK Government have done little to remove significant barriers to gender recognition. There must be swift action by the UK Government to deal with the inequalities and remove barriers faced by Trans and Non-Binary people.