TRADE UNION representatives at the TUC LGBT+ conference today heard that the government should introduce a “simplified, free, statutory” gender recognition process.

Shadow women’s and equalities minister Charlotte Nichols told delegates that Labour would “resist any attempts to roll back hard-won rights” and were “committed to updating 2004’s Gender Recognition Act in order to introduce self-declaration for trans people.”

A statement debated by delegates said that in the two years taken by the government to respond to its consultation on the Act, trans people had been “forced to continue with a lengthy, humiliating, and expensive process to change their gender.”