Olivia Blake

I have been here talking about migrants and other communities who have been victimised and used as scapegoats repeatedly over the past 15 years. It has been sad to see; unfortunately we are seeing it across the globe, but we should all be standing up against it. We should be dealing with people’s daily concerns, rather than using rhetoric, as we do far too often. As we have heard from colleagues today, trans people will not feel protected right now. They are navigating rising levels of hate, extending delays to healthcare and increasing uncertainty about how existing laws apply to their lives. They are being told that their identity—their sense of self—is something that we can debate, question and deny. I think that is wrong and I urge all people outside the House who are looking at the interim guidance not to have knee-jerk reactions to that but to fully take part in the consultation. That consultation should be 12 weeks long, as previous consultations have been. For something that will mean such a big change for individuals, the EHRC has got the consultation period wrong and needs to extend it even further. I just think this is quite sad. It is right that people have a way to self-identify their legal gender. That matters for many reasons. I think a lot of politicians, sadly and wrongly, think, “Isn’t it a shame that trans people are trans people?” How completely wrong is that? Too many people live in fear, with false statistics, about the risk that people pose to women—