The statutory declaration is already part of the process, they just want to cut out the parts that anyone can legally hold them to and any medical care. There is no ethical or legal way to say someone is or is not living as a man or living as a woman. We no longer arrest people for wearing clothes associated with the other sex, there is no legally mandated way for the sexes to live. Clothes, hobbies, appearance...I mean, we can't say someone is or prove they were not planning to live as a woman for a masculine appearence or a beard because some women have a masculine appearence and don't remove their facial hair, we can't say someone is not living as a man for not having a beard or wearing skirts as some can't grow one at all and some men wear skirts. I am not living as a man in a kilt and a woman in a skirt, 'living as' is not an ethical or legal term - I can no more change my sex by living differently than I can change my nationality or age that way - it's just how the transition process is usually talked about so used for ease because there are other parts of the statutory declaration at the moment we can hold people to. Take those away and legally it's empty and unenforceable which is already a big issue with a lot of legislation that has been brought in to tackle problems.
While sex or gender is usually a nominal statistic in data collection that isn't usually a strong way to research a group, it's still important in collecting crime, health, and other social data for wider discussion and to know where to research. We can discuss how austerity mostly affects women from that data. We can discuss who are the victims of different crimes from that data. We can see where we need more support services and test how well they're working with that data. I can certainly see why we might want to add more information collected or change what we collect but with crime or health there are concerns, just toggling between male and female will obscure the picture. Keeping sex and having additional categories would I think be better for things like health and crime.
Really, I don't see what benefit self-ID will have over what we currently have now. I don't see how this is going to make people safer. Having it on a piece of paper, legal or otherwise, will not change how others treat us. I mean, I have a statutory declaration to change my name, I can't legally force anyone to use it any more than I can legally enforce with anyone to see me as I see myself which is not at all. I don't see how it's going to reduce dysphoria or discrimination, help people get housing or jobs, help people access the medical care needed, or in any other practical way help.
Even if we legally 'demedicalize' it, people will want and need to transition medically, and dysphoric people deserve better than what is going on now with abysmal waiting lists and ever shrinking face to face time and certainly deserve better than the idea that ten minutes with a lawyer they've likely is a solution to any of our problems. I really do not get why self-ID has became viewed as kinda the pinnacle of achieving trans rights. At least with same-sex marriage, the law was opening so that the legal rights and duties in marriage which were difficult if not impossible to get otherwise and most people admitted it's limited reach - that it was unlikely to make anyone treat us better or save lives from abuse, legal self-ID does...what exactly for us, what practical benefit will it achieve? I can't see it doing anything and especially not anything that our current system if it was well funded and managed wouldn't do a whole lot better.
I like practical solutions to inequality issues and I don't see that here. Personally, the whole 'demedicalize' from the Tories feels a bit too much like a good excuse to look really progressive while probably cutting services to vulnerable people. And from others, I worry that it encourages the issue we're already seeing in self-medicating on hormones bought online because socially we keep getting the message that transition will make everything better and that there is no reason for concern about people taking these very powerful body altering medicines so why not cut out the medical 'gatekeeper' if it's not required. This puts dysphoric people at risk both from the side effects of the medication but in that it is well known that hormones and surgery without other therapies has a pretty horrible result in our well-being. So yeah, there are problems happening right now and I don't see how legal self-ID fixes any of them.
And most forms don't say 'legal name' either but it's pretty much implied and not doing so on important forms can screw up thing. My citizenship forms do not say legal name or legal sex (it doesn't ask for gender) but not putting my legal name or legal sex in the name and sex section and acting like it not saying legal makes a difference when I and others sign the declaration would likely not be wise.
Rat are you referring to that tiny study in which that they asked women different questions in order to back up their own theory and done for the benefit of further exploring it in trans women. It literally goes from the orignal which has questions like "I have been aroused by picturing myself with breasts" or picturing myself getting my hair done at a hairdresser to the women's version which has questions like "I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself fully clothed in sexy attire.." or when hoping to meet a sex partner which I think most would agree are incredibly different and the latter ones are rather leading questions. Also the original has a few dozen questions while women's one had nine. That doesn't show 93% of women are autogynephillia, it proved poor ideological-driven research still gets published. It's one thing to question AGP or the way others use it but I think you're better than using such poor research to throw the vast majority of women under the bus. If, using the exact same standard for males not the women's version, almost all females had AGP, we would never get anything done, we would be too aroused all the time.