Baby could become first person born in England or Wales without a legal mother

and the subtleties at play when donor/surrogacy/unknown parents are involved.

What subtleties?

The woman who gives birth is always named as the mother on the birth certificate, even when we pretend they are men or non-binary-primary-parental-units or whatever.

Only when a child has been abandoned and nobody can find the mother is this not the case. These cases are rare and heartbreaking and should not be used as some sort of example to set ill-thought-out legal precedents. It smacks of yet more appropriation.

YY SuperDandy

There are some really interesting legal/political points on this thread. Lots of things around why brith certificates are set up the way they are, and the subtleties at play when donor/surrogacy/unknown parents are involved.

I do so wish we could stay in that zone and not have the posts saying the child should be removed from its parents or speculating on how the kid's life will be fucked up to a degreee that makes it worthy of comparison to Ted Grundy.

This board often worries about outsiders coming in to stir up and provoke posters into saying stuff that makes them look bad then quoted on twitter, but on this thread you're really not needing any assistance!

The child has an equal right to private and family life as the parent.

The birth certificate belongs to the child. It's a record of their birth and who gave birth to them. If this child's birth certificate is a big deal for the parent it's at least as big a deal for the child.

Either birth certificates matter or they don't.

Who is representing the child's interests?

The more I think about this the more it stinks.

This is also shows just how confused Gender and Sex are becoming now. Just because someone has a GRA cert shouldn't mean they should be recognised as having changed sex. Only a mother can give birth because of her sex.

Do people who think the trans person here has got a good case, also think that if you change legal sex after you’ve had a kid and registered their birth, that you should then be able to go back and revise their birth certificate in light of your GRA certificate?

(This is a power GRA certs don’t give at the moment).

So where I was down as my child’s mother, I could go back and change tteir birth certificate so I am now down as father?

If people don’t agree with doing that, why not? What’s any different about doing that to a child from the outset, at the initial birth registration?

Presumably this person is going to give birth and experience the hormonal rush and the overwhelming desire to protect their child.

They have. They brought the baby to the hearing. But it seems this gender identity obsession is the key thing here.

It's always been a very clear red line with me and my DD's transgender Father. (Who she still calls Dad, what with him being her Dad). I do my best to be civilised but I would never tolerate him attempting to pass himself off as her Mother. That's the one aspect of womanhood I will not allow him to appropriate or take from me.

Totally agree with everyone on here who has said this is narcissism at its finest, totally disregard for the child here.

I feel sorry for that registrar too that had to have that initial conversation with the Mother

Just shows how for some Trans, it is all about appearances and their own ego.

Anyway, what I wanted to raise was;
Would this have the potential to open the legal floor for TIMs to lay claim over foetuses as they would be able to identify as the Mother?

^Stopping women being the correct group for whom medical specialist care should be commissioned in a resource-strapped health service, recognising the needs of their female bodies in connection with pregnancy, the birth and postnatal period.
It’s a bloody scary prospect.^

Women's, children's and gender identity services are already lumped together by the NHS in terms of specialised care. They are discussed at the same meeting.

Socially I have no problem with a mother wanting to be called Dad - hell she could call herself a jam sandwich for all I care - but creating a legal fiction around it, no way.
The law is reason, free from passion. If we start changing bits to suit our feelz we are on dangerous ground IMHO.

This doesn't strike me as ideal for the child.

That's irrelevant because it is more important that trans people's feelings are the most important thing, not biology, society or anything else / anyone else.

I find it interesting the parent is represented as is the registrar but the child has no representation.

From the article linked in the other thread: A judge on Thursday heard preliminary argument from lawyers representing the man and lawyers representing The Registrar General for England and Wales at a High Court hearing in London.

Again no mention of anyone representing the child's interests.

Section 12 of the GRA is the relevant law:

Parenthood
The fact that a person’s gender has become the acquired gender under this Act does not affect the status of the person as the father or mother of a child.

Yes, I'm wondering who is representing the child's interests in this case. The article doesn't say.

Great posts ChattyLions

Mossandclover I really hope so too. Services must be involved and representing the child, I’m hoping that it’s just the case that the paper can’t report this to try and protect the child.

Great post chattylion

I hope the child has a solicitor representing their case here. After all it is about the child’s birth certificate which is nothing to do with the mum.

just to note the other thread on this: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3271504-Transgender-man-gives-birth-and-wants-to-be-recorded-as-babys-father?pg=2&order=

Also if legal ‘mother’ or ‘’father’ (birth certificated) self ID became allowed, how would that stop ANYONE (without a biological or nurturing connection of some kind) from making a claim as legal parent? It would be wide open to abuse. As PP said, a child trafficker’s dream.

It would destroy the rebuttable legal presumption of legal fatherhood of married men. This question would presumably only be able to be settled by bringing in a new model of birth certificates providing genetic mother and father details which for lots of reasons is opening a whole other can of worms for the child undermining their privacy and legal interests and protections. It would be fundamentally anti-child to go down this route.

Setting the course for women’s unique biological contribution, (sometimes used against them) as the group of people who have the ability to gestate and give birth ... ’to be erased’ that should have said.

Presumably this person is going to give birth and experience the hormonal rush and the overwhelming desire to protect their child. They want to take some.of the best bits of being a woman then deny they ever happened. The interests of the child should be paramount. This person should be recorded as the mother . What they choose to call themselves after is up to them.

Cwenthryth The child/children would be kept away from the mother all the time they were maintaining they were God. Under 12 months could join them on a mother and baby unit for recovery once they had stopped declaring they were God. Older children would be kept away until the mother had stopped saying things considered emotionally damaging to the child.

Ugh I woke up in the night thinking about this legal case. The only person in this who can be excused for thinking that their own interests are one and the same with the parent’s, is the newborn baby. Such awful, reckless narcissism to bring it.

I can’t see how this case would succeed legally but if it did, logically the next case would be led by a male-bodied misogynistic TRA wanting to have their name down on their child’s birth certificate as the legal mother.

Thus erasing the woman who gave birth to the child out of legal recognition, and erasing the truth of the child’s history.

Setting the course for women’s unique biological contribution, (sometimes used against them) as the group of people who have the ability to gestate and give birth.

Stopping women being the correct group to be recognised for female-intended economic benefits like maternity leave, or to be the automatic receipt of child benefit.

Stopping women being the correct group for whom medical specialist care should be commissioned in a resource-strapped health service, recognising the needs of their female bodies in connection with pregnancy, the birth and postnatal period.
It’s a bloody scary prospect.

If the mother declared she was God before or after birth she would be sectioned and the child removed.

Well, no, if space/provision is available, by preference women with postnatal psychosis are sectioned in a mother & baby unit and supported as best as possible to stay together whilst the mother recovers, and if that’s not possible, the child wouldn’t be automatically ‘removed’, they’d be cared for by the father or other extended family until the mother is home. Same as if she was hospitalised with any other illness.

Please don’t co-opt real situations that new mothers in mental health crisis face to make your argument. However we feel about the reasons behind people claiming a transgender identity, it is clearly not the same as the situation you describe.

I don't get it. Correct me if I'm wrong but transgender means you are born one gender but feel you are the other gender. You are completely uncomfortable with who you are and how your body is built and functions.

Surely then you wouldn't consider using your body for the most natural and amazing thing it can do.. Give new life. Surely you would think no I can't do that I'm a man not a woman.

I think this person is either very confused about who they are and need help or just out to make headlines