Trans identity
The Committee stage of the Identity Documents Bil has now ended. Lynne Featherstone MP, who sits on the relevant committee, has blogged about one particular proposed opposition amendment, in turn quoting a blog entry from Zoë O’Connell:
It’s nice to see an MP who one voted for doing some positive work on issues that affect you, even if that positive work is having to defend [I think she means "attack". Ed] the possibly well intentioned but certainly badly thought out actions of the new opposition. You’d think Meg Hillier, having proposed an amendment to the bill scrapping ID cards relating to transgender people, (Specifically, New Clause 3) might have done some basic research on the issue. Clearly she had not and neither had her colleague, Julie Hilling, before also speaking in support of the clause. They were, to my mind, rather unprepared for the somewhat better researched responses from Lynne Featherstone MP, Equalities Minister, and Dr.Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge. (My local MP)
The amendment was to keep ID cards for transgendered people for a period as, according to Ms. Millier, it’s the “only document that could be given to someone in an acquired identity without a gender recognition certificate”. As anyone that’s been through the process knows, this is nonsense. In regards to passports, the United Kingdom Passport Service will issue a new passport if you can produce medical proof that you are transitioning. This new passport will have the appropriate name, photo and gender marker. In my case, this took around three weeks mostly because I had not enclosed my original birth certificate but Dr. Huppert makes reference to another of his constituents who managed to get a passport in 5 days.
The comment thread on Ms. Featherstone’s blog entry includes further interesting discussion of the issue. The committee’s discussion of the amendment took place on 6th July, and is available here.
