Author Archives: Jennie Kermode

The Independent View: Non-gender-specific passports – why the EDM matters

By Jennie Kermode | Thu 9th January 2014 - 5:59 pm

This week has seen the submission, by Julian Huppert, of EDM 907, LEGAL RECOGNITION FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH A PARTICULAR GENDER. If it sounds familiar, that’s because a similar EDM was introduced by Simon Hughes last month but had to be withdrawn when he became a minister. The subject, of course, will be unfamiliar to most of those who come across it, and that’s why it’s so important to explain how deeply it impacts those affected.

I work for a charity called Trans Media Watch which aims to improve media understanding, and thereby social understanding, or transgender and intersex people. As it happens, I’m currently processing results from a survey about people who don’t identify as male or female (generally described as non-binary people, though personal definitions vary). The survey relates to perceptions of the media, but two things come through clearly in it that seem relevant to this situation too. The first is that this is a group of people who feel very poorly understood. The second is that they experience a great deal of distress because of that lack of understanding.