Members of Parliament on the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Select Committee are currently holding an inquiry into reform of the Gender Recognition Act. According to the committee, the inquiry is designed to examine the government’s proposals for change to the gender recognition process, ‘gathering evidence on whether the proposed changes to GRA2004 are the right ones and whether they go far enough’.  As part of its inquiry, the committee is holding a number of in-person evidence sessions and has also sought written views. 
The Labour Women’s Declaration working group is among a range of organisations which have submitted written evidence. This has now been published by the committee and you can read the full document here. The key points in our submission are: 

• Considerable problems arise through confusion of the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ in the GRA 
• Equality monitoring and discharge of the Public Sector Equality Duty are compromised by the confusion of these terms
• Accurate guidance concerning the provision of single-sex services is urgently needed 
• As a result of these confusions and inaccurate guidance, self-declaration of identity as a woman or man has become the de facto norm, acceptance of which is assumed by many to be a legal requirement; women’s sex-based rights are damaged by this acceptance
• Vulnerability, potential dangers, religious belief and discrimination are among the reasons why single-sex provision is required 
• Undefined terms such as non-binary and gender-fluid cannot be the basis for law, and any problems arising from non-conformity to stereotypes is better addressed via existing law
• The Scottish Government’s proposed Gender Recognition Reform Bill does not offer a suitable alternative to reforming the GRA