Doncaster MP says transgender youth are “tearing families apart”

The bill would have made it easier for people in Scotland to change their identities by changing the legal age from 18 to 16 and lessening the criteria needed.

The UK government announced on Monday that it will use a Section 35 order to block the legislation from passing, claiming that it will impede operation of the UK Equality Act.

In a Parliament debate, Nick Fletcher MP defended the government’s decision.

He said that there is no “wisdom” in a single part of the bill.

He continued: “There may have been six years of consultation, there may have been many experts who have gone through this, but unfortunately there has been no common sense.

“The only common sense that I have heard today and wisdom that I have heard today is from the Secretary of State to use section 35 to protect women and children in England.

“I have spoken on this subject before and I have been vilified for saying transgender children are just going through a phase, only for the NHS to write an article a few weeks later saying the majority of children are going through a phase.

“These sorts of things are being glamourised on TV as though it’s a wonderful thing.

“Well let me tell you it is tearing parents, families, and children apart and setting children on a path of puberty blockers, hormone replacements and then onto surgery.

“It is a disgrace what we are doing with children and it must stop.”

The MP was criticised by locals and charities in June last year after sending a letter to every school in his constituency containing his views on transgender youth.

He said that “boys are boys and girls are girls” and that doubts over gender are “nothing more than a phase”.

The Section 35 Act which has been planned by the government to block the bill would be a constitutional first, as it has not been used since its creation in 1998.