Kemi Badenoch, the equality minister, wants to close a “major loophole” in US law. Photo: Geoff Pugh/Geoff Pugh
Ministers are considering closing a “major loophole” allowing people to self-identify their gender on passports and driving licences.
People are not currently required to do this themselves . show a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) if they want to change the gender shown on official government documents.
Freedom of Information requests show that HM Passport Office approved more than 3,000 requests from people between 2018 and 2022 to replace the “gender marker”.
Campaigners say the loophole creates “identity through the back door”. and raises the risk that single-sex spaces for women and girls could be compromised as passports and driving licenses are commonly used for identification in everyday life.
Kemi Badenoch, the minister for equalities, wants to close the loophole, but support from other departments is needed.
Gender Recognition Certificates
The Telegraph understands she raised the issue with Suella Braverman when she was Home Secretary and then wrote to her successor, James Cleverley.
< p>A government source said: “This is a serious loophole, made even more problematic by the fact that passports and driving licenses are often used as evidence when applying for a gender recognition certificate.”
The report says A Freedom of Information report submitted by campaigner Payton McIntosh shows that in 2022 there were 259 requests made to people to change their gender from male to female and 269 requests from female to male.
Between 2018 and 2022, there were approximately 3,188 requests for gender reassignment. gender marker was approved.
It is unknown how many had GRC, which typically requires a person to have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and to have lived in their affirmed gender for at least two years.
< p>However, by the end of 2021, only around 6,000 certificates had been issued since their introduction in the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
“Self-identification at the back door”
Conservative MP Miriam Cates raised the issue in the House of Commons last month. She asked Ms Badenoch to do more to “stop this back door identity”.
“Sex matters, both in life and in law, and it is right that the UK has its own There are strict procedures for obtaining a GRC, but these guarantees do not apply to the process of changing gender markers on passports and driver's licenses, which are much more commonly used for real-life identification,” she said.
Ms Badenoch responded that this was an example of how the law needed updating.
“The reason we have this is not because the government supported self-identification, but because before since the same-sex marriage law came about, we wanted people to be able to change their legal documents so they could get married,” she said. “Now that we have legislation to correct this, we should take another look at some of the measures we took earlier.”
A petition calling on the government to stop official documents listing a person's acquired gender as their acquired gender has received 12,500 signatures.
Balancing people's rights
The government responded that while it is “committed to protecting the rights of transgender people”, they wanted to ensure that “these rights are properly balanced with the rights of others.”
The response stated: “Systems exist to support transgender people in obtaining a passport or driving a license in accordance with their acquired gender without the need to obtain a gender recognition certificate.
“Passports and driving licenses are often part of the evidence that transgender people provide to the gender recognition commission to obtain a GRC.
“The government is committed to maintaining safeguards that enable organizations to provide same-sex services. It is important that, in accordance with the Equality Act, the principle of being able to use spaces reserved for women and girls is maintained.
“We are absolutely committed to protecting the rights of women and girls.”< /p>
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