What were they thinking? When Tony Blair agreed, in 2004, to legislation allowing transsexuals – as they were then called – to change their legal sex, he probably thought Labour was merely ‘being kind’ to a tiny number of people with the medical condition of gender dysphoria. He never expected thousands of young people to start asking for gender reassignment, puberty blockers, and genital surgery. Yet here we are.
Nor, I’m sure, did the Labour MPs who voted for the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) expect women to be forced to undress in front of natal men in changing rooms, or that male-bodied transgender athletes would be competing in women’s sporting events, or transgender sex offenders would be housed in women’s prisons.
I am certain that no one in 2004 thought that NHS doctors, after changing sex, should have any disciplinary issues and suspensions wiped from the record by the General Medical Council (GMC). Wes Streeting claims to be appalled by this revelation, but it stems from laws passed 20 years ago.
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