Penny Mordaunt claims she’s been ‘smeared’ over her transgender stance and insists she never backed ‘self-ID’ – so what did she ACTUALLY say?

On Sunday she rejected claims she had ever pursued a policy known as “self-ID” – that is, allowing people to legally change from male to female (or vice-versa) at will and without any medical oversight.

At present, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act allows people to change from one to the other even without undergoing surgery or taking any hormones.

In other words, under existing law, a person can legally have a male anatomy and entirely male hormones and still be classed as a female.

However, there remain a handful of criteria which such people still have to meet before their change of gender can be legally recognised.

These include having a medical diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” (an NHS-recognised mental condition in which people feel distress about their gender identity), and pledging their intent to remain in their new gender permanently.

Activists have been pushing for several years to scrap these remaining criteria.

Ms Mordaunt told the BBC’s ‘Sunday Morning’ programme yesterday that she had never advocated ending the requirement for trans people to obtain a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before they could legally change gender.

“This has been rebutted many times. We all know what is going on. This is the type of toxic politics people want to get away from,” she said.

“There is a number of smears going on in the papers. My colleagues are very angry and upset that this is how the leadership contest is being dragged down.”

SO WHAT WERE HER ACTUAL QUOTES?:

As former equalities minister in 2018, Ms Mordaunt began a consultation into changing the 2004 act by declaring that “transmen are men and transwomen are women”.

This phrase is a rallying cry used by activists to signify their belief that anybody who says they are a woman is actually a woman (or vice versa).

Here – verbatim – is what Penny Mordaunt told the House of Commons on July 3, 2018 (News Letter’s emphasis):

“Ultimately, what will enable someone to hold their partner’s hand as they walk down the street is not a piece of legislation but a culture change in this nation.

“As I have said before, back in the 1980s — before many of us were in politics — we saw the homophobia that gay men, for example, faced at the time. I am sure we all agree that if we had been in politics at that time, we would have called that out and stood up for those individuals.

“That same scenario is happening now to the trans community, and we must show our absolute unwavering solidarity with those individuals.

“As I said in my speech this morning, trans women are women and trans men are men. That is the starting point for the GRA consultation, and it will be its finishing point too.

“We need to send out a strong message on that front, and I thank the hon. Lady for affording me the opportunity to do so.”

And in a ministerial foreword to that consultation (which followed an earlier survey of LGBTQQIA+ concerns), she wrote this:

“Many of the trans respondents to our LGBT survey said they found the current system intrusive, costly, humiliating and administratively burdensome.

“Whilst many trans people want legal recognition, too few are able to get it.

“In too many cases the current system prevents them from acquiring legal recognition of who they are, denying them the dignity and respect that comes with it...

“This consultation seeks views on how the Government might make it easier for trans people to achieve legal recognition.”

The Government Equalities Office in 2018, under her watch, also affirmed the existence of “non-binary” people.

This refers to people who say they are neither male not female, but some other gender like “two spirit”, “neutrois”, “gender fluid” or “pangender”.

For instance, in the preamble to its consultation in 2018, her department said: “This consultation does not consider the question of whether trans people exist, whether they have the right to legally change their gender, or whether it is right for a person of any age to identify with another gender, or with no gender.

“Trans and non-binary people are members of our society and should be treated with respect.”

More from this reporter:

Click here > Transgenderism: Doctor questions PSNI pledge to celebrate ‘non-existent genderless people’

Click here > PSNI says ‘supporting LGBTQIA communities is an area of focus for police officers’ as it celebrates ‘IDAHOBIT day’

Click here > DUP deputy’s entire remarks to LGBTQIA+ gathering

Click here > Ex-Conservative chair Brandon Lewis takes swipe at NI social conservatives

Click here > Director of group which was hired to train the PSNI dubbed police ‘racist oppressor pigs who deserve the wall’