A Labour MP has sparked outrage after calling for a change in the law to allow people’s gender to be changed on official records after their death.
Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols called for the change in a written parliamentary question to the Cabinet Office last month.
She asked if the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 could be amended to allow for “transgender people who are deceased to be legally remembered by the gender they lived by”.
It would mean that those who had not undergone surgical treatment could be identified as a different gender.
“The genesis of the petition was the murder of my constituent Brianna Ghey, whose life was brutally cut short before she was old enough to have formal legal recognition of who she was and how she will be remembered by her family, friends and our community,” Nichols told The Telegraph.
“At that time, the Government said they did not believe any reforms were necessary, but it is something I continue to have raised with me by my constituents and will continue to raise with the Government accordingly so that this can be an option available to bereaved families should they so wish.”
Equalities minister Stuart Andrew had replied saying there were no plans for the Gender Recognition Act to be altered.
The Conservative MP added that organisations such as the NHS could assess whether a different gender was being used prior to death and decide for themselves what pronouns would be best to use.
He said: “Where a person was using their new gender with an organisation prior to their death, and that was on their personal records, then we anticipate that the organisation would engage with their family members using the new gender.”
Nichols’ request has sparked outrage, with some campaigners accusing the Labour MP of attempting to find a way to introduce gender self identification into law.
Lucy Marsh, a spokesperson for The Family Education Trust, said: “It’s extremely concerning that Labour appears to be pushing towards introducing gender-self-ID through the back door.
“If coroners are allowed to lie on public record about the sex of deceased children, this will surely be a slippery slope towards self-ID becoming normalised in the NHS.
“If this is legally allowed, what’s to stop deaths being recorded as ‘non-binary’ or babies being registered as the opposite sex?
“The Government needs to crack down on this and make sure the NHS is based on reality rather than fantasy.”
North Somerset MP Sir Liam Fox added: “It is patently absurd, factually inaccurate and a statistical distortion.
“We should not be encouraging the idea that people can simply choose to change their biological status nor should we bend truth to accommodate an ever more extreme and dangerous ideology.”
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/trans-news-labour-mp-charlotte-nichols-gender-change-dead