Even without self ID you can change your documents

[SwearyGodPervert]

One of the brave ManFriday chaps shows here how easily people falsify their documents re their sex in spite of them not having a GRC.

What is the point of a sex marker on a document if it isn’t accurate? And what is the point of the GRA if it’s already ignored?

He (its Friday, so I’m not misgendering MNHQ) explains it better than I can on the blog so do have a read.

Happy Friday
I had a conversation with someone about Danielle Muscato's female driving licence and how easy it is to change your documents regardless of evidence. They said "yeah but that's in America we definitely can't do that in the UK. that's just daft."

I don't think anyone realises how easily someone can change their official identity it's just daft.

The TRAs are getting quite cross about his self ID has been abused here on twitter and still not joining all the dots.

They've also gone to the police claiming fraud (though no victim). I wonder whether we can complain about them? They seem to want to waste police time a lot, or pervert the course of justice.

Thanks, 0phelia that's a really timely photo.

The Twitter threads are hilarious, a lot of calls for evidence to back up the self-id position. The TRA's really don't get it at all: either self-id works for everyone, or it doesn't.

Wow, just wow.
No supporting evidence just filling in a section of the form that isn’t even for that purpose?
That is astonishing.
This needs a much wider audience.

I thought the TRAs wanted self ID? No more humiliating hoops to jump through, they cried!

Oh... Only for the menz they meant.

It sort of works when it is only a very rare occurrence, but in the future, it will affect the integrity of documentation.

I'm genuinely shocked by this one.
Great work manfriday! Surely the press will be interested?

I feel like this thread needs a link to the petition on the government website, which asks for women to be consulted about self ID laws
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

Every thread needs one Circle

Blimey! So just because you want too you can change your licence? As easy as filling in a form. So by flashing a changed licence in womens spaces men have access. Does no-one ever think these things through?

It’s madness.
Good on Man Friday!
This kind of makes me want to see what I can push along these lines.
I’m very newly pregnant and now wondering if I could challenge my hospital along these lines. Hmmm.

Bravo to the men Fridays for showing how ridiculous the law is !

however might I advise anyone taking this action has also informed their insurers (in theory it could invalidate your motor insurance )

plus it could cause issues in a foreign country !

most lesbians aren't against the old school trans men and women , who have chosen me to swear their oaths re change of name , application to The Gender Recognition panel ,and other legal issues

all of these are really nice quiet people , who like most reasonably thinking people oppose self ID

See, now I'm vaguely considering identifying as a man, changing all my documents, and continuing to be very obviously female.
Are there any potential legal problems with doing this?

Well according to the TRAs on twitter you will be committing fraud and go to prison for ever for being a very bad human. Clearly as there’s no benefit to you or detriment to anyone else they’re being ridiculous. I shared the blog (it’s not about me) and lots of them have said they’re reporting me to the police. Because the police aren’t busy dealing with actual crime so have loads of time to deal with people disagreeing on the internet.

As far as I can see nobody, under the current dogma, can say someone else isn’t trans. You don’t need to change anything about the way you present or live your life, just say that you are a man or woman and it becomes so. Obviously without self ID you can’t legally change gender but as these TRAs keep telling us they don’t have a GRC and yet all their documents say they’re female. So if there are legal ramifications for you then there have to be for all the transpeople who haven’t got a GRC. Paris Lees, for one, says they don’t have a GRC but their passport says F on it.

I didn’t realise until a few months ago that a passport or driving licence could be changed without GRC. It leaves me very uncomfortable.

This is bonkers and shows the situation for how ridiculous it is. Wonder what the insurance companies' take is on it? If risk is based on sex among other factors then can you manipulate prices by changing gender?

Insurers stopped doing different packages for males and females long ago so changing M/F doesn't make any difference, I believe.
(Even though they still know that men cause far more accidents)

I wonder how they'd record your sex if you were involved in an accident and your licence said one sex but your passport said another.

How would they ever know your sex?

If risk is based on sex among other factors then can you manipulate prices by changing gender?

It isn't - women used to get lower premiums because we're statistically lower risk of expensive accidents, but this was considered to be discriminatory. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12608777

I'm the ManFriday chap who wrote the driving licence blog. I've namechanged as I may have outed myself on a different thread and I've since had tons of abuse and threats and possible police reports made about me on Twitter.

If you read the blog I was very specific on the D1 form that I was self-identifying my gender identity. Not my sex. That DVLA went ahead and changed my licence is on them - they either equate gender id and sex, or we have all unknowingly had a gender identity marked on our licences for years.

My insurance policy is fine. Thankfully, it quite clearly specifies my sex. Change of gender identity is not listed as a change I need to notify them about. There are no financial implications as it is illegal to price differentiate anymore between men and women. I even phoned them yesterday to double check all this.

So sex on driving licences is now clearly compromised. This has obvious implications for the integrity of such a widely used ID document. Fraud, data collection, research, driving offences records and arrests, medical emergencies and organ donation are all impacted.

I would love people here to take this information to their MSPs and MPs, bring it out into the open and ask lots of questions. Self-id is not even law yet.

Also, this could be an excellent campaign point. If x amount of people did this every month what would be the cost to DVLA, and how high would x have to be before they looked a bit closer at their policies?

Just a bit more on the technical aspects. DVLA say title and gender can be changed without providing any evidence. For a name change, documents are needed to show a link between the old and new names.

This has lead to the silly situation of me being a male called Ms Jane Doe. However, I could potentially change the name on my electricity bill to a masculine name and then use that to become Mr Joe Bloggs on my driving licence (with any gender of my choice).

It is insane!

I haven't looked at passports in as much detail but, as far as I can tell, you only need a GP letter confirming the gender change is likely to be permanent. No GRC, no amended birth certificate, and the GP does not even have to diagnose gender dysphoria.

Involving my GP did not fit the self-id ethos of ManFriday, so I wasn't prepared to go down this route, but I imagine it is relatively easy to achieve.

GinAndSonic

I'm with you. If self-id becomes law in Scotland I'm changing everything.

On passports, it has been possible to change these to your new legal name for a very long time.

Mine was changed in about 1975 but did need my doctor's as guarantor.

For some years it only changed name and you could not even have Miss on, for instance, just the name.

When computer data ones were introduced in the mid 90s an M/F marker first appeared on them. Even then a decade before the GRA was passed your renewal automatically gave the marker as the gender you had been living in, or, if you newly applied, the one the doctor treating you confirmed you were permanently transitioning into.

I was very surprised when I got my renewal back and it said F. I still have it, even though it is over 20 years old, as I was without one for many years when a full time carer so unable to travel. And I had to send it off to be cancelled to get a new one last year.

Quite a lot of documentation has long been possible to change with medical support. The education authority even voluntarily changed my school exam certificates (O levels and A levels) over 40 years ago.

That said in today's situation of terrorism and illegal trafficking this is something that really needs to be looked at and tightened up.

There is no way this should be as simple as saying so. That is leaving us all vulnerable to dangerous abuse.

Yet another reason why if self ID comes in it should not be without proper gatekeeping and assessment first.

You cannot play games with switching identities. You might be 100% sincere and only wanting to get on with your life happily but there are others who will exploit the situation to the advantage of themselves and the detriment of others.

Which really is the whole problem with self ID.

The concerns are not the 99% who are entirely genuine. But the danger posed by the 1% who are not and would abuse the freedom.

I think, if we're going to have a GRC at all, that one should be required to change a universal piece of identification like a driving licence or passport. And that obviously the gatekeeping should stay and should be tighter

Yet another reason why if self ID comes in it should not be without proper gatekeeping and assessment first.

In which case it is not self-id.