Labour has sparked a fresh row over the protection of women in single-sex spaces, after setting out new plans to simplify the current gender change process.
Under Keir Starmer's Government, the plan would scrap a panel of doctors needed to approve a gender recognition case, instead allowing just a single family doctor to make the decision instead.
Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary Anneliese Dodds has said Labour want to see the process for gender recognition "modernised", while also "protecting single-sex spaces for biological women".
Reacting to the plans, Commentator Amy-Nickell Turner said the ideas were "originally the brainchild of Theresa May" and this is "not a left-wing woke idea".
Annunziata Rees-Mogg and Amy Nickell-Turner clashed over the potential abuse of single-sex spaces
GB News
Host Jacob Rees-Mogg argued that the requirement to have a panel decide "actually protects people who have a desire for a gender recognition certificate from all affairs", such as "men just dressing up as girls and using the girls' toilets".
Nickell-Turner disagreed, stating it is a "very sensible amendment" to help obtain the certificate.
Nickell-Turner explained: "It's basically paperwork. It's things like your birth certificate, your marriage certificate, and your death certificate, and obtaining that more easily."
Jacob hit back at her, claiming: "Isn't this a safeguard that protects people with your opinion? If you take the criticism of gender recognition certificates, it's the idea that a boy tomorrow morning could wake up and say 'I'm a girl' and go make a nuisance of himself in the girl's changing rooms. This is about accepting somebody as a different gender."
Anneliese Dodds has said Labour want the gender recognition 'modernised', while 'protecting single sex spaces for biological women'
PA
Nickell-Turner disagreed, stating it has "nothing to do with changing rooms" and only "two per cent of transgender individuals have the certificate".
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
She further defended the plans, adding: "When you apply for a gender recognition certificate, you still have to have supporting material. It's just not as highly medicalised, doesn't take as long and it's more simple way."
Former MEP Annunziata Rees-Mogg failed to agree with Nickell-Turner's remarks, and claimed that the plans are "not at all well thought through" and spark "numerous questions".
Rees-Mogg told GB News: "Anneliese Dodds says you'll only have to see one doctor, but you can't go straight to a specialist, you have to go to a GP. So the professional deciding is your general practitioner rather than someone qualified in a relevant area.
"Without any surgery, you can decide with the say-so of one doctor and not having to convince a panel or anyone else that you have changed your gender, you are then legally allowed into every single sex space of the other gender, but there is no way to protect it.
"You are also legally allowed to fulfil all the quotas for equality for women, and that is not fair."
Amy Nickell-Turner defended the move by Labour to enable easier methods to change gender
GB News
Jacob then turned the transgender debate to sport, where equalities are already being questioned in women's sports when biological men compete, claiming "lots of men have pretended to be women so they can win".
Nickell-Turner disputed his argument, responding: "If you were right, the England women's football team would be all biological men. And it's not - this is not a problem.
"There was the case of Leah Thomas, she won the college swimming competition, she went back the next year and she came second. People only have a problem with transgender athletes when they win."
Annunziata Rees-Mogg was in disagreement with Nickell-Turner again, fuming: "I never thought of myself as a feminist, but I'm afraid this does make me very passionately feminist.
"This is undermining all the fights that my gender has had for the last 50 years, to correct the wrongs of hundreds of years. We fought for equality, and we are now seeing it being lost, by men taking our place in our own gender."
