Open consultation on the Gender Recognition Act
In July, the UK Government launched a consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
This is the law that lets people change their legal gender, but the current process isn’t as good as it could be. It’s complicated, slow, and expensive – and completely ignores non-binary people and anybody under 18. If you’re married, you can’t change your legal gender without permission from your spouse. This consultation is an opportunity to improve the process!
There’s a good overview of the current issues on GenderBen, and the consultation itself also includes lots of detail.
You can fill in the consultation on the Government website:
Open consultation: Reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 – GOV.UK
If you live in the UK and you haven’t already, please consider taking the time to respond. Tell the Government that you support trans rights, and that legal protection shouldn’t require such excessive gatekeeping hoops. There’s probably going to be a strong transphobic response (such as from the protestors at London Pride), so countering that with positive responses from trans allies is very welcome!
It took me about 30 minutes to finish. If you can’t finish it in one go, you can save your progress and come back to it later – but don’t delay! The consultation closes at 11pm on 19 October, in just over a week.