Minister Evokes Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Slogan as She Announces Cut Price of Legal Gender Change to £5

US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks about on the third plank of his Buil
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Equalities Minister Liz Truss evoked Boris Johnson’s and Joe Biden’s globalist-progressive “Build Back Better” slogan when she announced the cost for trans people to legally change gender would be cut from £140 ($195) to just £5 ($7).

The minister for the notionally Conservative British government announced on Tuesday: “As we build back better, we want transgender people to be free to live and to prosper in modern Britain.

“In the National LGBT Survey, 34% of transgender people told us that the cost of applying for a certificate was holding them back from doing so.

“Today we have removed that barrier, and I am proud that we have made the process of getting a certificate fairer, simpler and much more affordable.”

The phrase “Build Back Better” was used in the United Nations in 2015 to describe the approach by which Japan was able to recover from the 2011 earthquake which triggered a tsunami, both of which led to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.

In the coronavirus pandemic era, Build Back Better has been adopted by progressive world leaders and is often associated with the climate change agenda, such as by Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who said of “Build Back Better” last year: “This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine our economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change.”

The phrase is better known as part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda and the slogan has been adopted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the leader of the Conservative Party.

Johnson evoked “Build Back Better” after speaking to then-president-elect Biden in November, saying that he “look[ed] forward to strengthening the partnership between our countries and to working with him on our shared priorities – from tackling climate change, to promoting democracy and building back better from the pandemic”.

Build Back Better has also become associated with the Great Reset agenda laid out by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which meets at the exclusive Swiss resort of Davos. The WEF has used the phrase several times in the past year. WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab had written in June 2020 that there needed to be a “’Great Reset’ of capitalism” to transform societies and economies in the global response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

The government’s concession in price was not enough for transgender activists in the UK, however, with continued calls for the Gender Recognition Act to be replaced with a self-identification declaration.

Currently, applicants to legally change their gender must have lived as their preferred gender for two years, wish to continue to live as that gender, and have gender dysphoria. They must submit two medical reports and their application is reviewed by the Gender Recognition Panel.

In 2018, the Conservative government — then under Prime Minister Theresa May — opened a consultation to explore reforms to make it easier to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), but announced two years later it would not change the process.

According to the government, there are between 200,000 to 500,000 transgendered people in the UK, and as of December 2020, 5,871 full GRCs have been issued since 2005.

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