Inventing ourselves: some comments on gender self-identification proposals

The Minister for Women and Equalities, Justine Greening has announced a government proposal on altering the legal requirements involved in a person changing their gender identity. The current legislation includes a number of safeguards before a person is allowed to legally change their gender identity, including a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the requirement that a person has lived in line with their chosen gender identity for two years. Under Greening's proposals those safeguards would be scrapped, allowing people to self-identify their gender. The intention is to ‘de-medicalise’ the process. But gender dysphoria is a psychological condition that requires expert diagnosis and treatment.  Should a person wish to go ahead with hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, that would by definition involve medical intervention. The process cannot therefore be ‘de-medicalised’. The current safeguards should be retained as an absolute minimum.

A person cannot simply assert that they are a man or a woman, contrary to their birth gender, and expect society to recognise that as a fact. Birth certificates should not be retrospectively altered to change a person’s birth gender, or so they can identify themselves as ‘X’ opposed to male or female. In terms of genetics and reproductive functions, human beings are born either male or female. That is a scientific fact that cannot be altered. People who feel ‘trapped in the wrong body’ should be treated with kindness and respect, but the best way of dealing with their gender identity issues is to help them come to terms with the person they are by birth (see here). The tiny percentage of people born with an intersex condition is not strictly relevant to this discussion. The matter concerns those who were born male or female, who wish to identify with the opposite sex as a matter of choice.

As a Christian I believe that human beings are made in the image of God as male and female. It is part of God’s good creation that men and women are equal and yet different. The differences between men and women should be celebrated as part of the natural diversity of the human race. No attempt should be made to deny or overcome these differences. Giving a man female hormone treatment and subjecting their bodies to surgery in order to give them a feminised appearance does not alter their genetic maleness or bestow upon them female reproductive functions. Similarly with women who seek to identify as male. Biological facts are not malleable and cannot be changed at will, or even by medical procedures.

The ‘Trans Movement’, whose agenda the government seems to be championing seems to have a very restricted understanding of what constitutes male or female gender identity. Gender stereotyping needs to be challenged rather than reinforced. A boy who enjoys cooking and dancing is a boy who enjoys those pursuits, not a girl in the ‘wrong body’. A girl who prefers playing football to dressing up as a princess in bright pink is a sporty girl, not a child who is ‘gender fluid’. It is a great disservice to vulnerable children to suggest that they may be suffering from gender identity problems that may be resolved by boys seeking to become girls or visa versa.  

The number of children who have been referred to gender identity clinics has grown exponentially in recent years. This is due in part to a culture where children are encouraged to question whether they are in fact boys or girls. Hormone suppressing drugs are prescribed to children in preparation for gender transitioning. Commentators have rightly expressed alarm over these developments. Feminist writer Camille Pagila recently stated, "The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible," and "I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights.” (Life Site 20/06/17).” Dr. Joanna Williams was quoted in the Daily Telegraph (23/06/17),

Although the number of transgender children is small, it is growing rapidly. Children - encouraged by their experiences at school - are beginning to question their gender identity at ever younger ages.

In doing more than just supporting transgender children, and instead sowing confusion about gender identity, schools do neither boys nor girls any favours.

Writing in The Times (27/07/17), Clare Foges pondered the harmful implications of your policy for children,

Widespread mental health problems, from self-harming to eating disorders and anxiety, reveal that children are suffering increasing distress. The causes for this are complex but might we quietly suggest that encouraging them to question the very essence of their identity will not help?

The proposed gender self-identification policy only stands to make things worse for children. 

Ms. Greening is the Minister for Women and Equalities. It is therefore surprising that she seems unaware that the measures she proposes are likely to have a detrimental impact on women. Already there have been cases where men who identify as women have been incarcerated in female prisons, where they have gone on to sexually assault and even rape women prisoners. Women will be more vulnerable to sexual assault in changing rooms and toilets if men are able simply to self-identity as women and use these facilities themselves. To say nothing of the implications for women’s sport, should men who self-identify as women be recognised as such. The physical strength and speed of ‘trans women’ will put natural women at a disadvantage, which seems manifestly unfair to female athletes. The policy proposal Greening is now championing was drawn up by her predecessor in the role of equalities minister, Maria Miller. When Janice Turner pressed Miller on these matters in a probing interview in The Times (29/07/17), Miller failed to come up with adequate answers and threatened to walk out of the interview.

The facts of life cannot be altered by legislative fiat. The government’s proposals on gender self-identification will require society to accept a fundamental untruth, namely that it is possible for a person to become a member of the opposite sex simply by making a statement to that effect. People do not share my Christian beliefs may be tempted to dismiss my arguments out of hand. It is not only Christians, however, who share my concerns. Dr David Starkey is no friend of the Christian faith. Yet writing in The Spectator (29/07/17) to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Starkey, a self-confessed ‘Gay Tory’ heavily criticised these proposals,

So where does this leave Justine Greening’s recent announcement — deliberately timed to coincide with the anniversary of the ’67 act — that the government hopes to make gender reassignment a simple matter of statutory self-declaration with none of the ‘demeaning’ bother of medical assessment? Is it, as she claims, part of a properly conservative long march? Hardly. We fought, as conservatives should, for the recognition of facts. On the other hand, Greening and her sidekick Nick Gibb believe in defying them, since they appear to deny that gender is based in biology.

Legislation in defiance of established facts cannot be acceptable. These wrong-headed proposals on gender self-identification should therefore be abandoned.

* This blog is an edited version of a letter sent to Ms. Greening, with a copy to my own MP. Go and do likewise if you share my concerns.