I will be giving evidence to the House of Commons Women and Equalities select committee tomorrow (Wednesday 9th December). This will be the first of several oral evidence sessions as part of their new Inquiry on the Reform of the Gender Recognition Act.
You can watch the evidence session here from 2:30pm.
In 2015, the Women and Equalities Committee held a broader Transgender Equality Inquiry. One of the recommendations that came out of this was that the Gender Recognition Act be reformed, so that changing the process by which a person can change the sex marker on their birth certificate is more straightforward and less expensive.
These proposals were provisionally adopted by both the UK Government and Scottish Government in 2017, leading to three consultations. The UK government did not actually formally announce the changes it planned to make until September 2020, and these turned out to be very minor. The Women and Equalities Committee is therefore seeking to scrutinise this process, and ask whether the changes promised by the Government actually reflect what trans people have been asking for. I have been invited to comment on this by the Committee, alongside two other experts in the field: Professors Stephen Whittle and Alex Sharpe.
Dr Ruth Pearce 
Sorry this is really upsetting, I have lived for 80 years a transsexual and I do not identify as transgender – also for those so lazy and undecided they use trans as a descriptor – stop it.
Which is it transgender or transsexual they are both so very different people!
And stop using gender as if it meant anything, anyone can choose their gender identity and express it as they wish, but it does not change their anatomy one little bit – and that is Fact not opinion.
As for Self ID, giving the supposed right to say you are a woman because you say you are – try that argument when you apply for a driving licence – saying you can drive without proof is madness – what has happened to common sense?
Forget all the misinformation activists want to impose on women and let’s get real people.
All transsexuals ever wanted (still do) is to have their SEX Change recorded, as that is exactly what it is – and be allowed to have their documentation reflect their changed sex status corrected. It was the Government that decided that document should be a birth certificate, not me – Google this from the Guardian in 2002 “Transsexuals win right to change birth certificates”.
Note – Transsexuals, not transgender – Transgender people known in my youth as transvestites always hated transsexuals (Google, Virginia Prince) from day one, that is why they now try to convince everyone their problem is gender based, not sex – the world is being misled on this point!
Not that I have any problem with transgender people – they are not the same as me, simple really.
And by the way I have a GRC – should have said Sex Recognition Certificate but then us British – we don’t “Talk about sex do we”!
More to the point I don’t claim to be a woman even with a neovagina because the rest of my cellular construction will always be male thanks to male puberty – and no one does research on that, surprise, surprise – at least not on the effects when your male body has a female brain.
Try escaping that one for decades when your brain tells you – you are female, but your body shows otherwise. Collectively we have a very long way to go, but these comments are a result of a lifetime of lived real life experience.