The UK Government has been consulting on the need to change the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which governs peoples’ access to Gender Recognition Certificates. These Certificates are incredibly important as they allow trans people to have their gender legally recognised. Currently, obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate is an expensive, lengthy, pathologising, stigmatising, and medicalised process.
The Department of Gender Studies has submitted a departmental response to the Government’s consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. In our response, we take the position that the current process for trans people to obtain legal recognition is flawed, and it requires drastic reform. We therefore demand that the Government support trans and non-binary people by taking on a full reform of the GRA: trans people should have autonomy over their own gender identities, and the Government should start legally recognising non-binary gender identities.
Particularly in a moment when trans people are coming under attack from individuals and organisations, we felt it was important to demonstrate our collective support for trans and nonbinary people. It also feels vital as a Gender Studies Department to refuse the popular-press representation of feminism as predominantly trans-exclusionary and transphobic. Although the Consultation closes on Friday 19 October, we will be continuing to think as a Department about how we can support trans and non-binary rights as the ‘results’ come in and we move into a phase of policy discussions.
http://studentsunionucl.org/articles/open-statement-from-lgbt-representatives-within-university-of-london?fbclid=IwAR2tVharYMUFNcmCsbAsH60kJdj1LauteMv9IgsfsBmVrs3aIyv4ljKWAH8