‘Do away with gender on documents,’ says ERG

 The Equality Rights Group has called for the removal of a person’s gender from official documents such as driving licences, identity cards and passports.

 “In this day and age, not only does stating gender present unnecessary difficulties and issues to transgender or gender-fluid citizens, it doesn’t send the right message out to young people either when it comes to overcoming stereotyping,” the group states in a press release.

 The ERG said it has been working with the Minister for Equality for some time to achieve the necessary gender changes to a local transgender person’s documentation, but have faced unexpected delays.

“Yet unnecessary suffering and cruel embarrassment to such individuals can be avoided by simply ‘degendering’ documentation of this sort,” the group said.

“Tory MP Maria Miller, Chair of the UK's Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee, is right when she argues in a recent Report that gender stereotyping ‘can be as damaging for men as it can be for women.’”

The ERG said it agrees and also concurs with the Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation that gender change should be simplified and no longer subject to “traumatic psychiatric or medical checks”.

This is already the case in the Republic of Ireland since September last year under its Gender Recognition Act, and the UK is likely to follow.

 “Gibraltar should remain ahead of the curve on this issue. Knowing what we now know about gender issues in the twenty-first century, it makes little sense for us to do otherwise, and we urge Government to advance the equality agenda in this respect. It is the task of our generation to be working towards the day when neither gender, sexual orientation nor any other social status should be a justification for unjust treatment in our or any other country,” the ERG statement ended.