Transgender people have once again been betrayed by the British government’s apparent reversal of promises made two years ago by then-Prime Minister Theresa May to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004, in a way that would allow trans people to self-identify and to obtain a birth certificate to demonstrate their correct gender.
In leaked documents detailing the government’s long overdue response to a public consultation begun in 2018 on a reform of the GRA, Boris Johnson’s government has seemingly decided to scrap plans to reform the act in any way that might make social or medical transition for trans people easier. As it currently stands, the GRA dictates that in order to obtain a change in gender on their birth certificate, transgender people must engage in a lengthy and exhausting process of medical assessment, including psychiatric therapy and diagnosis, as well verification that they intend to undergo gender affirmative surgeries.
The GRA 2004 was originally implemented to allow transgender people to have their birth certificate updated with their correct gender. However, this 16-year-old policy is riddled with problematic and bureaucratic red-tape that has trans people subjected to invasive psychiatric assessment, wherein they must be formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria before a legal change in their gender status will be considered. However, many transgender people do not experience gender dysphoria, or, at least, not in such a way that would satisfy the narrow criteria laid out by the government. The fact that the British state currently has a monopoly on what is considered ‘trans enough’ is already an infringement on a trans person’s right to self-determination.
The current legislation also completely excludes non-binary people and provides no legal recognition that there exist trans people who fall outside their binary definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. There is currently no option for non-binary people to change their birth certificate to reflect that they identify as neither male nor female. The GRA also mandates that a transgender person’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria be accompanied by how that diagnosis was reached and which, if any, gender affirmative treatments they have undergone or plan to undergo in order to medically and socially transition.
This process is intensive and often humiliating for trans people who are evaluated by medical professionals poorly-trained in understanding the nuances of gender identity, who often do not understand how to properly use the correct pronouns and who will always require that a trans person be ‘out’ socially, meaning they must be recognised as having lived as the gender they wish to be reflected in their birth certificate and other subsequent documentation, regardless of how safe that option is for them. Staggering statistics such as the fact that 89% of transgender people have, at one time or another, considered suicide are details of little interest to the British state which appears to have no intention of removing any of the current hoops trans people are made to jump through.
The government had been set to formally address the result of the public consultation on potential GRA reforms this summer. This consultation began in 2018 and included putting to the public whether they believed transgender people should be allowed to self-identify. Although the results of this consultation are yet to be officially revealed, a YouGov poll demonstrated that an overwhelming 70% of those who participated agreed with the notion that a trans person should have this right.
In an incredibly lacklustre attempt to placate the LGBTQ+ community, Johnson has confirmed there will be a legal ban on conversion therapy for gay and trans people. This is long overdue and no substantial win for the community, as it was already assumed that such practices would be outlawed.
Liz Truss, Conservative Equalities Minister, revealed in April in governmental talks on GRA reforms, that there would now be a focus on the ‘protection of all single sex spaces’. For any person versed in transgender issues, this reads as a huge transmisogynist dog-whistle that implies that existing ‘women-only’ spaces will not include trans women, particularly those who have not subjected themselves to the governmental process of psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria and subsequent treatments and surgeries.
All this has provoked outrage from the transgender community, non-binary people (some of whom identify as trans and some of whom simply identify as not being cisgender), the supportive family members and friends of transgender and non-binary people, and all those that stand in solidarity with these communities.
The material conditions under which trans people currently live are oppressive: discriminated against in access to employment and healthcare, disproportionately affected by homelessness, and the target of state and criminal violence. Transgender and non-binary socialists are under no illusion that any promise of change from the establishment would significantly transform that reality, let alone have borne the fruit of liberation from transphobic oppression. However, the failure to implement these reforms will contribute to making those conditions worse. Many of the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations have highlighted the oppression of black trans people, and on 4 July hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square in central London to express their outrage at years of empty promises and betrayal of the LGBTQ+ community by the British state.
Raimy Skye
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 277 August/September 2020
