Labour MP Dawn Butler has slammed the Conservatives for the delays in reforming the Gender Recognition Act (Picture: Rex)

The transgender community has been ‘demonised’ and exposed to ‘hate’ because of delays to law reform, a Labour MP has said.

Dawn Butler slammed the Conservative government saying it was a ‘f***** disgrace’ how they had handled changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

The Tories launched a consultation on reforming the act in July 2018.

However there have yet to be any announcements and campaigners say the delay has led to an increasingly ‘hostile environment.’


Stonewall told Metro.co.uk that hate crimes have risen by 81% in the last year and two out of five trans people say they have experienced an incident in the last 12 months.



Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, Dawn Butler, said the Tories took on Labour policy to reform GRA to be ‘on-trend.’

She said: ‘It’s a f****** disgrace how GRA has been handled.’

The politician added: ‘They [the Conservative government] made the announcement, then they got some anti-GRA people so they started to roll back, they started to slow down.

‘So, within that 18 months of slowing down there was a void and that void was filled with hate, misconception, misrepresentation, misappropriation.

‘What happened in that void is that transgender people began to feel hate and discrimination that they hadn’t felt in a long time.

‘Transgender people were just living their lives.

‘They had some problems and issues but they were dealing with it.

‘But this shone a spotlight on the transgender community that didn’t need to be there and they started to feel all this hate.’

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The GRA is the mechanism by which trans people can change their gender on their birth certificate.

The community say that the current process to receive legal recognition of their acquired gender is ‘too bureaucratic, expensive and intrusive.’

Currently a person needs a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and there can be lengthy waiting times for specialist appointments.

They also need to prove they have lived in the new gender for at least two years.

Stonewall and other LGBT+ organisations want trans people to be able to self-determine their gender and also open up legal recognition to non-binary people.

In addition, campaigners want to lower the age at which people can change their legal gender from 18 to 16 and remove restrictions that mean a person’s spouse has veto power over their gender change.

The Tory government opened up law changes to a public consultation but that closed in October of last year.

Campaigners say in the meantime, the community have been left in limbo and exposed to hatred caused by the public discussion surrounding the issue.

Penny Mordaunt has apologised for the delay and says she wants to reveal the results of the consultation before parliament’s summer recess (Picture: EPA)

Ms Butler added: ‘I blame the government for the hostile environment for the transgender community. I solely blame them. I think it falls on their shoulders.

‘I think it falls on Prime Minister Theresa May’s shoulders. They have done so much damage and it will take us a long time to refill that void and the hate that has been there.’



She said any Labour government would implement GRA quickly if they come to power after a general election.

The shadow minister added: ‘As politicians we have a responsibility. Don’t start something you don’t understand, that you can’t finish quickly because you have demonised a whole community that didn’t have to be demonised.

‘We have a lot of problems in the world and this didn’t have to be one of them. I blame them, unapologetically, I blame them.’

Ms Butler was interviewed at Black Pride by Michelle O’Toole from the podcast What The Trans.

Ms O’Toole told Metro.co.uk that the Tories were probably not prepared for a backlash by some groups against changing GRA legislation.

She said since they announced proposed reforms, the spotlight was now on the community in a way it had not been before.

Ms O’Toole said: ‘It’s always been hard to be trans, it’s always been a struggle’

‘But there was always an element of anonymity where some people could hide in plain sight.

‘But now we are part of a national discussion and there are people who don’t want us in public life.’

Last week, Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny Mordaunt, said that she wanted to announce the results of the consultation on reforming GRA before the summer recess.

She said they had received over 100,000 responses and she told Pink News she was ‘sorry it’s taken so long but we needed to do a proper job on it’.


In June, Scotland announced it was delaying plans for reform GRA legislation and would not extend legal recognition to non-binary people.

Metro.co.uk has contacted the Government’s Equalities Office for comment.