AN MP has called for plans to allow people to choose their gender by law without medical diagnosis to be treated with “extreme caution”.

David Davies, MP for Monmouth, voiced his concerns after attending a seminar on transgender issues at the House of Commons.

Proposals to reform gender identity will be included within a planned Gender Recognition Bill, which is due to be published later this year.

Ministers are considering allowing adults to change their birth certificates without, while allowing those who identify as “non-binary” to be able to record their gender as “X”.

But Mr Davies remains in stern opposition to potential changes to the “very definition of male and female” and claims it could have a “huge consequences for women’s rights”.

He said: “it would mean that people who are biologically male will have the right to use female-only facilities such as prisons, hospital wards and changing rooms, and to take jobs which are normally reserved for women.

“While the vast majority of transgender people do not want to upset anyone, there is a concern that some men with sinister motives may try to take advantage of this in order to assault women.

“I would strongly support any measures to protect people from physical or verbal abuse but we need to think very carefully about the unintended consequences of changing the law in the way being suggested.”

The Tory MP also claimed to have learnt that children within his constituency had been prescribed “powerful drugs which block puberty” and could lead to “irreversible damage to the bodies of young people”.

He added: “We all know that children can question all sorts of things about their lives and that is normal and healthy, but I don’t think we should be handing out cross-sex hormone treatment at such an early age when it is quite possible they may change their minds.”

The panel at Westminster consisted of Miranda Yardley, who identifies as trans, and Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend, a group of parents said to be “questioning the trans narrative”.

It was also attended by gender specialist psychotherapist James Caspian.

According to Mr Davies, who arranged the seminar, he has been asked by the speakers to organise a meeting with Equalities Minister Justine Greening to enable their concerns to be properly heard.