Government responds to transgender inquiry

[WhereAreWeNow]

The government has responded to the Women and Equalities select committee inquiry on trans equality. The response is here.

It seems to generally be taking a more cautious approach than the Women and Equalities select committee. Lots of "keeping things under review" type responses which I think is good. Real resistance to changing rules around puberty blockers and transing of kids too.

I'd be interested to hear what others think. And sorry if this has already been posted elsewhere.

I like the idea of removing gender as far as possible from official forms and documents - it seems like a fair and practical way to treat all groups. Slightly concerned about the impact on statistics of moving from classification by sex to classification by gender (e.g. mortality which is specifically mentioned) .
I note they haven't said anything about the gender recognition process changes, or if they did I didn't notice it.

I think there is a section on gender recognition. Government have said they're keeping things pretty much as they are. I think that questions about sex on forms must be driven by a genuine need to collect that data. But I think there are lots of circumstances in which it's useful to have that data. I think the government response recognises that. Health stats, stats on crime, stats on education, employment, poverty etc...are needed to understand the position of women in society.

I agree. My point is more that it seemed they wanted people to give gender rather than sex. For some social things such as gender parity at work that's probably the right thing to do. But for biological things like causes of death it might screw up the stats. Depending on how many transgender people there are.
I'm particularly worried about crime stats, it doesn't take many transgender women at all to inflate sexual and violent crime offending and that then plays into that whole MRA angle about "women rape too/women are violent too" when trying to discuss violence against women.

Actually I think it's important for workplace stuff too. Given how common it is for women to be forced out of work or to find their earnings stagnate once they've had kids, I'd say our biological sex is pretty important in terms of how we're treated in the workplace.

If a transwoman faces discrimination in the workplace, it's awful too but I'm guessing she's discriminated against for being trans rather than for being a woman if that makes sense.

One thing that struck me and a few others I've spoken to is that the new codification of gender dysphoria away from being a mental illness.

Now, this could mean that the medical world no longer thinks that wishing to have functioning organs removed because they disturb you is not a disorder of thinking or mental illness or, and this is more likely given the colour of the present government, it might mean that those men who need to access plastic surgery in order to feel comfortable in their own bodies, will now have to pay for that access themselves, instead of it being available on the NHS. Especially as no plastic surgeon worth the name is going start "reassignment" surgery without some extensive counselling having been undertaken first to be as sure as it's possible to be that this is really what the man needs.

The government are reviewing the Gender Recognition Act www.gov.uk/government/news/gender-recognition-act-review-announced-in-plan-for-transgender-equality