Chamber and committees

I know that my colleagues around the table will come back on certain points that you made in that answer.

I will turn to Karon Monaghan. I listened to your opening remarks and I am interested in your thoughts on the medicalisation process. Do you agree that medicalisation of gender dysphoria is problematic and do you see the shift away from requiring that diagnosis as necessary?

I note the evidence that you gave in Westminster in February 2021 when you said very similar things. When you talk about gatekeeping and safeguards, what kinds of things do you have in mind?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I have a couple of questions. First, will you give us a flavour of the support for trans people and others that the clinics provide, so that we know what you do?

I will come back on a couple of things. In a lot of what we have heard, the assumption is that we are always talking about trans women; we must recognise that trans men exist, too, and Sharon Cowan mentioned non-binary people in her opening remarks. In relation to what you say about gender dysphoria and the medicalisation of it, given that the World Health Organization has reclassified it and there is increasing evidence that not all trans people experience gender dysphoria, how can we retain a restriction that excludes trans people from getting a GRC?

I suppose that there are no other identities that we may have as human beings and that are currently recognised by the Equality Act 2010 that require gatekeeping in that way.

One issue in relation to the panel requiring evidence to be submitted to prove that you are who you say you are is that the process is intrusive. Surely trans people deserve privacy, too.

I know that another member wants to ask about age later on, so I will leave that to them.

The evidence is increasingly clear that there is substantial published research based on direct engagement with trans people that that is not always the case. I would not want to prescribe what being a woman has to mean—the idea that you have to look, dress and act a certain way is sexism, and I would not do that—and I would not want to do that to trans people, either.

I suppose that, on the issue of the wider group and what characteristics might be included in that wider group, there are questions about why that has the legal significance that two of the panel members seem to be giving it. However, I realise that we probably need to move on, convener, so I will leave it there for now.

There are protections for that accordingly.