By stewartb

I’ve just seen this in the Daily Record: ‘Labour will not allow self-identification for trans people if it wins the next general election despite the policy being supported by its MSPs.’

We’re told: ‘Anneliese Dodds, the shadow equalities secretary, said today the party would keep the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to obtain a gender recognition certificate as part of its proposed reforms.’ Adding: ‘Dodds, who was born in Aberdeen, said medical diagnosis would remain “an important part” of future Labour reforms.’ (Relevance of her place of birth in this context anyone?)

So now Labour is joining with the Tory Party in making a U-turn on support for self-ID. Recall that under Prime Minister Theresa May – and following a public consultation in England whose outcome found much support for self-ID – this reform was Tory government policy.

See full account here: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/01/19/the-screeching-change-of-direction-the-forgotten-westminster-history-on-gender-recognition-reform/

The Record notes the contrast with the position taken recently by most Labour MSPs. It fails to note the position taken not so long ago by the same Ms Dodds speaking on behalf of HM Opposition in a House of Commons debate.

See https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-02-21/debates/56E94FB0-8DC6-45A0-8EA7-F20208B3E175/GenderRecognitionAct?highlight=gender#contribution-D3952484-D6E5-43E3-8D23-24C34EFFF374

Ms Dodds stated: ’We need reform of the Gender Recognition Act. It must include a process of self-identification, and we must continue to support the implementation of the Equality Act, including the single-sex exemptions.’ (my emphasis)

‘The Equality Act, as is clear from the accompanying material, from the code of practice and so forth, assumes the inclusion of trans people with or without a GRC, as we have been talking about, and protects them from discrimination while allowing for specific circumstances where the single-sex exemption is applied. That is the right approach, and it is the one that my party supports. We believe that the Gender Recognition Act does need reform, and that reform is a narrow issue. I could not agree more with what my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) said in that regard.’

And what did Angela Eagle say in the debate that Ms Dodds agreed with? This is from Dame Angela’s speech:

‘I will speak to the actual issue that this petition is about, which is quite narrow and one that I think we ought to all, in our compassionate selves, be in favour of. The issue is how one gets official recognition through the issuing of a gender recognition certificate, which enables trans people to change their birth certificate to the sex that they wish to be—that they regard themselves as—and access certain pension rights without suddenly finding when they have lived their lives in the gender they wish, but do not have a gender certificate, and there are inconsistencies between their birth certificate and their own identity. This is about respect and dignity for trans people’s lives and the decision they have made to switch the gender that they live in.

‘The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) made an extremely good speech to open the debate. As he hinted at, the current system is onerous, humiliating and intrusive. It is sometimes impossible for people to interact with it, especially if they transitioned many years ago. Trans people have to get two doctors to agree that they effectively suffer from a mental illness; they then have to demonstrate to a panel, which they do not know and from which there is no feedback, that they have lived in their acquired gender for two years. For two years, they have to collect masses of documents such as bills, which can run into thousands of pages, to prove to the panel making the judgment that they ought to be issued with this certificate. They then have to produce other legal documents, all of which cost money, to make a submission to the panel.

‘As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said in his opening remarks, we have a very narrow issue on gender recognition certificates. There is a reason why between only 1% and 5% of trans people have successfully applied for such certificates: it is simply almost impossible for them to do so while keeping their mental health stable.

Dame Angela concluded – and presumably back then Ms Dodds and her party’s leadership in Westminster agreed: ’Is gender recognition a threat to others in our society? I would say no. We have seen the reform of gender recognition certificates and processes throughout the world; after leading in the world, we are now falling far behind due to our failure to reform that process. That is why the Scottish and Welsh Governments want to reform it, and why we should want to reform it: just to make it easier for already vulnerable people who desperately require that kind of official declaration—so that they can have access to pensions, for example.

‘All we need to do is get on with this modest reform, and we need to do it now.’

Angela Eagle was not alone. On 24 September 2020, there was another Commons debate which had this contribution from Labour MP Marsha De Cordova, then-Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities: criticising the Tory’s U-turn, she stated that ‘Labour would continue to support updating the GRA to include self-declaration for trans-people’.

I look forward with interest to how Dame Angela and others in the Labour Party will react to yet another shift under Starmer’s leadership to align more closely with the present Tory policy agenda and pander to England’s right wing and socially conservative media.