2. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to support equality for the transgender community in Wales? OAQ51815

The Welsh Government provides equality grant funding to Stonewall Cymru. Part of this funding supports a transgender engagement officer to lead on trans equality issues. They work within communities at a grass-roots level to hear trans voices and ensure they are fully engaged with the services designed to support them.

Thank you for that. You are probably aware that the latest Stonewall report identified that two in 10 trans people—that's 41 per cent—and three in 10 of non-binary people—31 per cent—have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity over the last 12 months. Now, this is, obviously, totally unacceptable, and you'll be aware that the Westminster Government is consulting on reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Cabinet Secretary, will the Welsh Government be taking part in this? Will you be responding to the consultation? And how else will you be involved in trying to influence changes to that Gender Recognition Act in order to provide more safety, more security and more protection to the trans community throughout Wales and the rest of the UK?

Well, absolutely. I'm sure the Member knows that the Gender Recognition Act is not devolved to Wales, but we welcome the UK Government's plans to reform the Act, and we've been engaging, at an official level, with those plans.

All our stakeholders tell us of the increasingly negative media and social media attacks our trans communities are facing. We don't like the damaging narrative at all, and we've been working with trans people to address the barriers they face in equality. We fund a number of organisations, which we have specifically asked to be aware of the trans issues. We fund Victim Support, for example, and we've been working with them to make sure that our training is in place for everybody who is involved in our Supporting People programmes so that they have specific training. We've been rolling that specific training out for specifically that reason. We're very, very much aware that we've a long way to go, but we are in the process of working on a number of initiatives, in conjunction with the community themselves, to make sure that we get the very best outcomes for trans people in Wales, in all our communities.