How difficult is it to change your gender in the UK?

A leading UN official has urged Scottish ministers to postpone plans to make it easier for transgender people to have their identity legally recognised.

In a 4,500-word letter Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, appealed to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to allow “sufficient time to complete a thorough assessment of all foreseeable consequences”.

What is the current procedure for changing legal gender?

Under the Gender Recognition Act (2004), transgender people across the UK can have their preferred gender legally recognised. To do so, they must satisfy a panel that they have, or have had, gender dysphoria, reports the BBC. Two medical reports confirming the diagnosis are required.

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In addition, the applicant must prove they have lived as the gender they wish to have recognised for at least two years, and make a formal declaration that they intend to continue to do so for the rest of their life

What is Scotland proposing?

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced at Holyrood in October, is set to be enacted by Christmas.

The Times explains that the new law “aims to make it easier for trans people to switch gender through ‘self-ID’ and by lowering the age limit from 18 to 16”.

According to the BBC, the Scottish government views the current process as “intrusive and outdated”, and wants to move to self-declaration. Applicants would no longer need to have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria nor to prove they have lived as their “acquired gender” for two years. Instead, they would have to live in that gender for just six months before being granted recognition.

The plans would have brought Scotland in line with nations including Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Argentina and Iceland, which all recognise self-declared gender identity.

How Scotland’s position differs from England

The Scottish government “says that once people have changed their legal sex, with a gender recognition certificate, human biology becomes irrelevant”, said Iain Macwhirter in The Spectator. Meanwhile, “Rishi Sunak is equally adamant that it does not”.

In England, “self-ID” has been “rejected by a Conservative government that insists on defining women on the basis of biological sex”, Macwhirter said. The upshot is that “we may end up with different definitions of what a ‘woman’ is north and south of the border”.

In the immediate term, “MSPs are braced for the most toxic debate in Scottish politics to get even worse before it gets better”, said The Herald’s political correspondent David Bol.

What do opponents of the plan say?

The new legislation, which is backed by the SNP-Green administration, the Scottish Lib Dems and some Labour MSPs, has been “bitterly opposed” by some feminist groups, said The Times, who have “received strong support from campaigners including JK Rowling”.

Tory MP Maria Caulfield, minister for women at the Department for International Trade, has argued that the concerns of women’s groups are being ignored. These concerns include worries that men who had not had gender reassignment surgery might end up in women’s prisons or in other women-only spaces. It has also been claimed that men might be able to get on to all-women shortlists for jobs simply by declaring themselves to be female.

In her letter to the Scottish government, the UN’s Alsalem echoed this sentiment, writing that the Scottish government’s bill “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a GRC and the rights associated with it. This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity.”

However, The Daily Beast insists that many of the concerns cited by critics of the plan are “shadow arguments” rooted in overblown fears rather than facts. The US-based news site notes that under the 2010 Equality Act, transgender people in Britain already have the right to use their preferred bathroom – apparently without issue.

In Scotland, politicians have voiced concerns that “conflating sex with gender identification affects a wide range of policy and service delivery, including data collection, education, health and social care, justice and sport”, and therefore should not be “rushed”.

Meanwhile, Ireland introduced legislation to allow people to self-declare their gender in 2015. Although there is no quantitative research yet on the outcome, anecdotal evidence from activists suggests the reforms have had “the significant knock-on effect of a reduction in mental distress”, writes Libby Brooks in The Guardian.

The newspaper has not found any evidence that the law change had led to “individuals – in particular teenagers – being pressured to undertake medical transition, or men falsely declaring themselves female in order to invade women-only spaces, as some feminist activists have feared”, Brooks adds.

What next in England and Wales?

In September 2020, the UK government published the results of a public consultation which showed widespread support for all aspects of reform to the 2004 act. This included 64% in favour of removing the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 80% in favour of removing the requirement for a medical report.

But, the UK government decided not to change the current law, which was described as “a missed opportunity” by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.