Gender Self-identification

Jacob Collier Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Savage]

I wholeheartedly agree that equality means equality, no matter who the individual concerned may be. Even the Government’s much-lauded £5 GRC fee is meaningless when the necessary private medical reports, blood tests and hormone prescriptions cost thousands. This is simply inaccessible to many people. It is not a system of integrity, but one of delay, expense and quiet exclusion leading to quiet desperation.

Meanwhile, there are some rays of hope. Organisations such as the Trans Legal Clinic are stepping in to fill the gap. Founded just three years ago, the clinic now supports trans people across the UK with legal issues relating to discrimination, housing, gender-based violence and access to care. Its staff are unpaid, its clients often arrive in crisis, and its work is saving lives. Its message to us as parliamentarians is clear: legal recognition reduces suicide risk. Gender recognition reform would directly improve mental health outcomes. We need to get past this toxic debate and focus on the urgent reality of trans people who face violence, homelessness and systemic neglect.

I will end this speech with a simple reflection. There are, as far as I am aware, no trans MPs in this Chamber, but we all have trans constituents, and we all have the capacity to imagine. Imagine waking up tomorrow exactly as you are—same body, same mind—but the world is treating you as somebody that you are not. They call you by the wrong name. They dismiss what you say because they do not see beyond the gender issue. That is the daily experience of many trans people in the UK.

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has made a comprehensive opening statement on behalf of the Petitions Committee, so I thank her for that. Does she agree that trans voices are often left out when we talk about these issues and have this debate? We need to remember that there are humans on the other side of this, and we need to listen to our trans community when we make decisions that directly impact their lives.

[Dr Savage]

I have worked closely with a member of my team who is a trans person in preparing this speech. It has been eye-opening for me, as a cis woman, to find out so much about the toll on members of the trans community as they try to navigate these impossible systems. I could have put so much more in this speech that would only arouse even more compassion. In my own small way, I am doing what I can today to try to be that voice for the trans community, which, as the hon. Member said, is not heard enough in this debate.

To any trans person listening to today’s debate: please know that even in a Parliament where your voice is still too often missing, there are people who see and hear you, and who will fight for your right to be yourself. As parliamentarians, we have a choice: we can stoke fear and division or we can show leadership. Let us choose dignity and compassion. Let us choose to recognise people for who they are as individuals, and give them the legal recognition and protection they deserve.