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I find this whole question deeply troubling.

I recognise and accept that a small number of people want to live as a gender that is different from their Birth Assigned Sex.

I also recognise that a very small number of people are given the wrong BAS and that this should be corrected.

I further accept that the current process may be too burdensome and expensive.

We cannot deny that for all but a very, very small proportion of people their BAS is what it is. Changing from your BAS to an alternative Gender Identity must be one of the most important decisions that anyone makes. As such it should not be as simple as is now being proposed.

So I ask the trans community to come forward with a rather less radical proposal than making it a simple matter of personal choice because, in my view, there is a lot at stake that is very unclear to those who, like me, do not fully understand the issues.

For example, it appears to me that the active promotion of transgenderism is resulting in very young children questioning their BAS. I have read of a case of parents being deeply concerned because social services threatened to take their child into care as they would not allow him/her to dress as the opposite gender.

I am also concerned about the potential impact on sporting competition. I know that the Olympic movement have made provisions for trans competitors but I am far from sure that these are fair on all competitors.

But what troubles me most is that this is a slippery slope. When an MP expresses the view that Gender Identity should fully replace Birth Assigned Sex then what? A child is a child rather than being a boy or girl? A young person whose BAS is male can decide to be female and then expect to share a dormitory on a residential school trip with the girls? What does 'living as a woman' mean if there is no definition of 'a woman'? There will be no need for same-sex marriage because there will be no such thing as 'sex'.