Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House – in the Senedd at 2:48 pm on 24 January 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:48, 24 January 2018

That's a very important point that the Member makes. As I said, the Cabinet Secretary and I are due to have our bilateral on these issues. I will say—and I'm going to steal my own thunder a little bit here—that next week I'll be launching the This is Me campaign, which is designed entirely to talk about gender stereotyping and treating individuals as individuals. It's a very hard-hitting campaign to make people see the person inside the skin that they see on the outside on a range of issues, including transgender. I think, when the Member sees it, she'll see what we're trying to do with it.

This is all about, as I said before, gender stereotyping. It's the root cause of a large number of the issues that Members have raised today and it's something we absolutely must tackle from the earliest point in people's lives. I have a major soapbox, which the Deputy Presiding Officer is watching me take out at the moment and knows I can go on for about an hour and a half on the subject—for example, on the Let Toys be Toys agenda and the way that people are shaped in their gender actualities really early on for no apparent reason whatsoever. The whole campaign will be designed around letting people be people, letting people be who they are and what they want to be without fear of discrimination or maltreatment. So, I will be having those bilaterals across the Government and we will be launching a hard-hitting public campaign next week.