Gender Self-identification

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Mundell. According to the Rainbow Map, which ranks European countries based on their legal and policy practices for LGBT people, the United Kingdom is now as low down as 22nd. We should bear in mind that just 10 years ago we were at the top of that list, but since then we have slowly but surely made our way down it.

Let us be clear: trans people in this country are facing a wave of hostility, misinformation and marginalisation. Regardless of our position on the topic of the petition, that should concern us all. Some organisations have jumped the gun on restricting access to single-sex spaces in advance of the full guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in the misguided belief that they are following an updated law.

I am afraid that the interim guidance, as other Members have said, does nothing to help that situation, and actually exacerbates it. In particular, there is the inexplicable assertion that, in some circumstances, the law also allows trans women not to be permitted to use men’s facilities, and trans men not to be permitted to use women’s facilities. In other words, trans people are excluded from all single-sex spaces.

For me, it is the vigilante enforcement of the so-called guidance that is perhaps the most toxic and damaging aspect of all. Toilets are becoming ideological battlegrounds, with the casualties including not just trans people but cisgender women who are not stereotypically female. It is clear that there is no adequate test for determining whether a person should now have access to a single-sex space, except for a DNA test perhaps, which is clearly not going to happen in a toilet, refuge or anywhere like that.

Out there, and perhaps in this place too, access is being based on whether a person appears to be a certain gender and whether they adhere to gender norms. I thought that we had left outdated notions of what a women should look and sound like where they belong, in the past, but now they are being dredged back up. Worst of all, that is being done by people who call themselves feminists.

The toxicity in this debate is not new; in this House, successive Conservative Governments not only failed to defend the trans community and advance their rights, but actively stoked division and rolled back the clock. Today, although there are calls for wider reforms, including on gender recognition and self-identification, we must also be honest about the political and social climate we are in. These are such important conversations and they require the right timing and sensitivity, not culture wars.

Over the last decade, both in the UK and globally, a lot has happened. I worry that we have started to channel wider fears into isolating an already marginalised group who just want to live their lives with the same dignity and respect that so many of us take for granted. A survey from Stonewall in March this year found that 17% of LGBT+ people have experienced physical assault because of their gender or sexual identity, and the number for trans and non-binary people is almost two in five.

The Labour party has a proud history of advancing LGBT+ rights, from legislating for a statutory right to NHS fertility treatment for lesbian and bisexual women to leading a United Nations campaign for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and, of course, introducing the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which was a groundbreaking change to the law at the time. However, 21 years on, as the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) so eloquently put it, the Act is in need of reform and modernisation.

Today, the Labour party once again has the opportunity to champion dignity and equality for all. Our manifesto commitments include a ban on all forms of conversion practice; improving access to high-quality NHS care, including gender-affirming care; making LGBT+ hate crime an aggravated offence, leading to harsher sentences; and that all-important gender recognition certificate reform. I know the profound impact it has when the law reflects our identity and allows us to live freely as who we are. Labour Governments have always understood that, and we have always known that progress never comes from standing still or failing to show up when the going gets tough.

The petition calls for legal recognition based on self-identification, and I completely understand why. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) said, our neighbours in Ireland introduced self-ID without incident or issue way back in 2015. In the words of an Irish lady I spoke to last week,

“the sky didn’t fall in and I’m pretty sure it’s still up there.”

Meanwhile, trans people here still face long-winded, undignified, medicalised processes just to have their identity legally recognised.

The Gender Recognition Act ultimately allows people whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered on their birth certificate to obtain recognition and a revised birth certificate. However, as has been said, that process involves two medical certificates, including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and details of any treatment received. Further, it requires evidence of a person living in their true gender for at least two years and a declaration that they will continue to do so permanently.

Clearly, there is much unfinished work ahead on untangling the legal mess that we have been plunged into, restoring dignity for transgender people, modernising the Gender Recognition Act and ensuring that our laws reflect the lives and identities of everybody in Britain. As a cis man, I understand completely that progress must be built on trust, on consensus, which I hope we are able to come to, and on delivering what we have promised.

Let us begin by delivering on banning conversion practices in all their vile forms, equalising the punishment of all forms of hate crime, reviewing adult gender identity services and ensuring that all trans people receive appropriate and high-quality care, and, of course, making the Gender Recognition Act fit for the future. I invite the Minister to confirm that the Government are still fully committed to those advancements, as I am.

I conclude by reaffirming my allyship for trans people, who now, more than ever, need our respect, acceptance and steadfast support.