Teesside MPs to attend State Opening of Parliament and King's Speech
The King will set out laws
The state opening of Parliament and the King's Speech is taking place today, which is being attended by our Teesside MPs.
Meanwhile, a transgender woman in Teesside says there needs to be more discussions around the gender recognition process.
It is as Labour's previously pledged to modernise, simplify and reform the law.
Ellie Lowther is a transgender woman based in Stockton and she runs a collective which champions intersectional inclusion in the area and the UK. She said: "I sometimes feel like the way politicians use identities as almost like a political football. It takes us into the world where how other people in positions of perceived power speak, that enables people on the street the sort of hateful rhetoric that we see out there as well.
"I would hope that all politicians would bear this in mind when they're speaking to other human beings. I just feel as if it's such a difficult time for everyone, I don't think any party is absolutely there for my community. I really don't. When a community is supposed to be everybody.
"Sometimes I think there's a bigger question about why we want to keep all the gender language in place, because for me the whole gendered language it ties into the world where transwomen would be demonised but transmen not so much, yet the challenges that we face is really quite similiar.
"This country I feel has got such a long way to go and I've been working in this area for such a long time. You think you're making a difference but it feels sometimes that you're trying to stop the wind.
"I feel as if we're a few years away from actual equality because we're too busy arguing some of the base level things. I sort of feel that the understanding of trans and non-binary is little more than a stepping stone to the world where intersex people have their autonomy.
"If you're from a family who's got a child, parent or a sibling or somebody that's going through transition or has come out as non-binary, the rhetoric out there in the streets sometimes if that's followed within the family then that's making people cut away, and that feeds into the isolation."