The government has updated its list of countries that it approves for female gender recognition procedures.
Countries that the UK government considers to have extremely “rigorous” gender recognition laws include those where trans people are sterilized, required to undergo surgery, and compelled to obtain their family’s consent before they can transition.
Kemi Badenoch, the minister of women and equalities, informed MPs on Wednesday, December 6, that the government would update its list of approved countries and territories so that trans migrants could apply for a British Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) without providing medical documentation.
A few areas are scheduled to be added to the list, subject to approval, while others that have been on it since it was last updated in 2011 will be removed.
The Tories no longer view these places as having “as rigorous procedures as the UK” as a result of the introduction of self-ID by several countries, which led to the decision to revise the list.
The following countries and territories will be included in the update: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Cuba, Georgia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, Namibia, Panama, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan.
New Zealand, Belgium, and the Netherlands are among the locations that have been crossed off the list, along with US states like California and Washington.
According to studies, many of the places that will be added to the list violate outdated legal requirements that trans people may meet in order to legally change their gender.
Trans people in Bosnia and Herzegovina must first undergo a complete health transition in order to legally change their gender. Brits can apply, however, if they haven’t “had any gender-affirming surgery or treatments” or “plan to have any” in the future, according to the UK’s GRC application page.
Trans people can legally change their names and gender markers on documents in China, but unlike in the UK, they are required to have gender-affirming treatments as a prerequisite.
Trans Taiwanese people must obtain permission for their sex transition from their households and the human resource offices of their work or educational organization before applying for the surgery. Once again, transgender people in the UK are not required to do this.
Trans people in Kazakhstan are required to undergo “an arduous, humiliating, and expensive series of procedures” that include in-depth physical and mental health examinations, hormone therapy, sterilization, or gender-reassignment reproductive surgery in order to legally change their gender.
More specifically, as specified in Decree No. 187 of the Minister of Health and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, trans people must go through “burdensome, humiliating, time-consuming, and often excessively expensive” procedures, which include HIV tests, bone x-rays, appearances before a psychiatric fee, and gender reassignment surgery (which includes being sterilized). Once again, applicants for a GRC from the United Kingdom are exempt from this.
One transgender person from Kazakhstan said of the process, “I felt like an object for research.” “If you’re not assertive about your boundaries, they can quickly cross them and ask you a lot of inappropriate questions.”
Additionally, trans people in Kazakhstan who have mental health issues or who are under the age of 21 are not permitted to apply to change their gender legally. There are no such limitations for those with mental health issues in the UK, and applicants may be older than 18 years old.
In Iran, surgery is once again necessary. Child trans Iranians may, however, provide a qualified statement from their parents stating they approve of their child undergoing gender-affirming surgery, which is another factor in the legal process in this case. There is no such requirement in the UK program.
In Sri Lanka, applicants under the age of 21 must also obtain parental consent in order to change the gender information on their birth certificates. Legal gender recognition is only granted in this case after the individual has been diagnosed with “transgenderism” on a psychiatric level and has undergone hormone and surgical treatment.
The new list of approved countries has been made public by Kemi Badenoch.
“It is this government’s policy that the UK does not recognize self-identification for the purpose of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate,” Badenoch stated during her statement in the House of Commons.
She continued, “Using the international routes to do so should not be possible for someone who does not meet the requirements for English legal gender recognition.”
She continued by saying that applicants from the UK must have “parity,” meaning that trans nationals should not have easier access to GRCs than British citizens.
