How to make policy: hide it in other policy. Layla moran and the lib dems at conference

I do think people should look the law up before stating an opinion based on a misunderstanding though.

Yeah, that was careless on my part. I'm usually much more diligent.

I wonder how long until a late transitioning male, reports his wife who wants a divorce, to west yorkshire police for the hate crime of transphobia? If we're not careful, wanting to divorce a husband because they are trans could be considered a hate crime.

Who the hell is there left to vote for now? None of them have a clue

I think we are quibbling over the legal details of how to achieve that.

I'm not quibbling. I do think people should look the law up before stating an opinion based on a misunderstanding though.

To me, "unreasonable behaviour" is abusive.

That's not the definition in law though.

Thanks for the blog link. That's a very wide definition, much wider than I expected. I would never have expected working overtime to be grounds for divorce.

Inebriati It's altering the material facts of the marriage, which is where the spousal "veto" in current GRA comes from. I wouldn't characterise it as being like working overtime or spending every weekend fishing.

I think we are all agreed that trans widow(er)s absolutely must have a fast way out of a marriage that doesn't make their children bastards. I think we are quibbling over the legal details of how to achieve that.

www.divorce-online.co.uk/blog/unreasonable-behaviour-divorce/

The idea that transitioning constitutes "unreasonable behaviour" in and of itself is transphobic.

Of course it isn't. The context is that a marriage contract was made between man and wife.
Its totally unreasonable for a man to decide his wife must stop defining herself as a heterosexual woman.
Its totally unreasonable for the man you married to demand you identify as a lesbian.

To me, "unreasonable behaviour" is abusive.

That's not the definition in law though.

And I doubt that it would be possible to cite "unreasonable behaviour

It is. I've done it.

Worth remembering that the current spousal veto wasn't written to apply to same sex marriage.

Yet it now does because of the changes to marriage law. Changes in one law can affect how another is applied, this is why I think that the effects of transition on marriage vows should be governed by the same law that governs transition.

That's a medical issue, and not within the person's control. I'm fairly sure divorces do follow on from problems like this

But not automatic annulments. And I doubt that it would be possible to cite "unreasonable behaviour". My point is that transitioning as a set of medical decisions isn't in and of itself unreasonable because medical decisions aren't unreasonable.

It would apply even more so if a person chooses to have surgery to end the sexual relationship they'd previously had with their spouse.

Depends whether the surgery is seen as a choice or as a suicide-preventing necessity.

I think there may be a mismatch here between my understanding of "unreasonable" and that of others. To me, "unreasonable behaviour" is abusive. Verbal abuse, physical assault, one spouse treating the other like a servant, that kind of thing. I am very uncomfortable with framing any kind of medical decision as "unreasonable" because I can see how easily that would backfire onto women.

Upthread, BarbaraStrozzi frames transition as a material change to the terms of the marriage vows and that's how I see it. "Jane Jones, do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband" the hint is the sexed natured of the bolded words. In reality the man cannot change sex, but he wants us all, including his wife, to pretend that he has done and this desire for pretence is materially changing the marriage terms.

Would a woman using LARC or getting her tubes tied without her husband's consent be grounds for divorce? Would a man getting the snip without his wife's consent be grounds for divorce? At what point do personal medical decisions become grounds for divorce?

Hmmmmm I would have thought so.

I'm assuming you mean PIV because the husband loses his erections or even penis. A wife becomes unable to have PIV because she has vaginismus or recurrent cystitis, is that grounds for divorce? And where do same-sex couples fit into this?

That's a medical issue, and not within the person's control. I'm fairly sure divorces do follow on from problems like this. It would apply even more so if a person chooses to have surgery to end the sexual relationship they'd previously had with their spouse.

Worth remembering that the current spousal veto wasn't written to apply to same sex marriage.

Would a woman using LARC or getting her tubes tied without her husband's consent be grounds for divorce? Would a man getting the snip without his wife's consent be grounds for divorce?

The answer to the above might be "yes because you lied to me about wanting (more) kids, it's not the deed that's unreasonable but the lie" but we need to consider very carefully the unintended consequences of making medical decisions (and legal decisions that accompany medical decisions, such as getting a GRC) grounds for automatic annulment or divorce, lest the breast cancer survivor finds herself divorced or her marriage annulled because her husband wants a wife with breasts. (After reading the comments BTL when Angelina Jolie had a preventative double mastectomy, I have no doubt that some men would do that.)

1. Infertile so the wife won't be able to have any more children

That's assuming that the couple are opposite-sex, that the transitioner is male, and that neither have already been sterilised.

Would a woman using LARC or getting her tubes tied without her husband's consent be grounds for divorce? Would a man getting the snip without his wife's consent be grounds for divorce? At what point do personal medical decisions become grounds for divorce?

2. Incapable of normal marital sexual relations?

I'm assuming you mean PIV because the husband loses his erections or even penis. A wife becomes unable to have PIV because she has vaginismus or recurrent cystitis, is that grounds for divorce? And where do same-sex couples fit into this?

I know of a couple where the already-sterilised wife transitioned. The arguments you made do not apply to them and so according to you, the wife's transition would not be "unreasonable behaviour", yet the husband (the allegedly-mythical transwidower) was still unwilling to remain married to someone who would be legally a man. Transitioning of married female adults is rare, but the law needs to accommodate it.

the GRA needs to be abolished

I often think that myself. The problem is that if we do that, by what means do trans widows and widowers escape marriages quickly without substantial changes to divorce law that may have unintended side-effects?

My worst dystopian nightmare would be where institutional capture leads to a definition of "unreasonable behaviour" which is a wife being "transphobic" by not waving pom-poms for her husband's transition.

Which is why I think the angle to pursue (in an ideal world where people decided on changes in law in a sensible way rather than being led by bonkers activists) would be to say "this is a contract, and the parties to the contract entered into it under a certain understanding of the material facts - het couple, gay couple. Therefore if one party attempts to change basis on which the contract was entered into, the contract should be up for renegotiation/dissolution via divorce, and the financial and legal issues round that decision should protect both parties - equitable disbursement of assets, child maintenance, children not being rendered illegitimate by the end of the contract."

Incalpable, not invaluable - autocorrect.

The idea that transitioning constitutes "unreasonable behaviour" in and of itself is transphobic. (Yes, you read that right, bear with me.)

Do you think the man on the street, or the courts would still think that, if it was explained to them that the transitioner is voluntarily going to render themselves:

1. Infertile so the wife won't be able to have any more children
2. Invaluable of normal marital sexual relations?

The lies, secrecy etc are the sort of things you can put in an unreasonable behaviour petition.
(Although I put the decision to transition in too).

bd67th the GRA needs to be abolished

I suspect this is also going to become much more of an issue now that all the progressive people are lauding those husbands when they go public with their private obsession. AWA will claim it's because there is more understanding so these husbands feel able to be their true selves. Others with less dewy eyes will see that lots of private obsessionists will now see they get extra kicks by going public, and their can't gaslight every single woman into standing by her man. So getting this financial/divorce issue sorted seems imperative.

The idea that transitioning constitutes "unreasonable behaviour" in and of itself is transphobic. (Yes, you read that right, bear with me.) This is not to deny that other related activities, such as redirecting jointly-owned savings to surgery and clothing, could be unreasonable. The point I'm not making well is that someone seeking medical help for what the medical community currently recognises as a diagnosable disorder isn't inherently being unreasonable.

What is unconscionable is for the transistioning spouse to have a legal right to unilaterally alter the fundamental terms of the marriage. The spousal consent requirement is meant to prevent that and must be retained in some form. A trans widow PP suggested that the GRC request should trigger an automatic divorce and I think a swift, automatic, and no-fault divorce is the fairest way to resolve this very clear conflict of rights. I read a piece by someone (it might have been Greer) who noted that annulment pretends that the marriage never happened, retrospectively turning children born in wedlock into bastards and chaste wives into fornicatrices. A PP raised questions about financial liability in cases of annulment, I have other questions: if a child inherits clan membership or a title through its mother's husband, does annulment strip that inheritance? (The same question re citizenship was rendered moot as of 2015 by changes to immigration law.) A no-fault divorce ends the marriage without apportioning blame, whilst acknowledging that the marriage happened.

If the couple wish to remain married, could they remarry the day the divorce takes effect? I note the transwidow PP's concern that a statutory declaration made during the marriage could be coerced.

What's really important, having seen how the GRA and EA interact with each other and other legislation, is that the automatic divorce must be baked into the text of the GRA during any reform and not set aside as "that will be covered by the divorce law reforms when we make divorce easier across the board". Trans widows need to have protection of their marriage rights in the law that governs transitioning so that other changes to divorce law don't impact upon them. Transitioning is a special case, no other medical or legal decision redefines the basis of the marriage in this way.

twelvcolourfulbirds that's exactly what worries me. A court system that can try to force Maria Mac to call her male attacker "she" is also one which could refuse to accept that a man forcing his wife into a faux lesbian relationship is unreasonable behaviour (even if any sane person could immediately see it was not merely unreasonable but psychologically abusive behaviour).

But I also share Tinsel's worry that the spousal "veto" (more correctly understood as the spouse's right to object to being placed in a radically altered marriage contract without their consent) risks leaving women screwed financially because the financial implications have never been properly articulated.

Oh, and to suggest that it is merely "unsatisfactory" but not "harmful" to suddenly find that your whole sexual identity, relationship history and social standing has been redefined by somebody else is bloody disgusting.

I typed the following a couple of hours ago in reply to you, KaitlynFairchild . ThePurported has made the same point, and much more eloquently and pithily than I, but I will post it anyway.

Look, the spousal veto should not be removed unless there is first a major reform of the current divorce legislation, which is utterly archaic, but won't be changing any time soon thanks to Brexit.

The spouse needs to have some control over what is happening to their life. This is not all about the "true identity" of the transitioner. This is also about the identity and dignity of the spouse. It's funny how you are fully prepared to back a wholesale change in the law based on someone's nebulous feelings, and yet the feelings of the people they devastate are viewed as irrelevant.

With the veto in tact, the spouse can have some control over the process and how it will effect her. If she knows her spouse wants to transition, she can get her ducks in a row before a GRC is granted, including starting and completing the divorce process if necessary.

As the divorce laws currently stand, if the veto is removed and self ID comes into place to allow a GRC to be granted with no proof or process, then there is nothing to stop the wife coming home one day and, out of the blue, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, finding she is in a same sex marriage.

She is then stuck with having not only to deal with the shock of this, but with the burden to then have exit the marriage, whilst already being mandated by law as being a lesbian, because this will be the only way the marriage can exist post GRC. She will have the usual divorce routes, the 2 year separation with consent (5 years if no consent), adultery or desertion(which may or may not have happened) or the unreasonable behaviour route.

With regard to the latter, it would not surprise me at all if the next bit of lobbying from the trans rights lobby is to try to remove expressions of "true self" from the definition of unreasonable behaviour, on the grounds that it is transphobic to suggest that transitioning activities (hormones, surgery, dress, pronoun changes, sexual identity changes) are unreasonable ones. I can see women being accused of being transphobes and homophobes for even suggesting that they find their husband's feminine pastimes intolerable.

I don’t disagree that the breakup of a marriage will in a lot of cases result in someone (if not both parties) feeling extremely hurt and distressed; but I am not sure how the spousal veto helps the spouse with these, other than giving them a legal way to hurt their partner.

Kaitlyn See my previous post re the government's position.
[The requirement for consent] does not mean anyone will have a right to prevent their wife or husband obtaining a legal gender change; simply that they will be allowed to decide whether they want their marriage to continue before gender recognition is granted. Marriage is a contract between two individuals and it is right that both spouses should have an equal say in their future when there is a fundamental change […]

The law is not about hurt feelings. If the trans person is seeking to have his identity validated in the eyes of the law, it seems fair to give the spouse the chance to agree or refuse to be part of something that could potentially misrepresent her sexual identity.

I think the principle of spousal consent is sound, but as Tinsel says, the legal implications wrt financial settlement need to be clarified.
And labelling het women as homophobes if they don't want to find themselves being married to another 'woman' is offensive and manipulative. It's weird how a man's trans status always seems to override women's sexual orientation.

but I am not sure how the spousal veto helps the spouse with these, other than giving them a legal way to hurt their partner

Sorry I can't let this pass. What evidence is there that this has ever happened? It allows one party the option of terminating a contract, the terms of which have been fundamentally altered.

The only way you can see this is them "hurting their partner"?

You say you are new around here @KaitlynFairchild. You probably don't comprehend how women are hurt in these relationships. I suggest you read the trans widows threads to educate yourself on that, and then come back to this debate better informed.