“Person who gave birth” turns out to be mother.

Let's get rid of the legal fiction that is a GRC. It causes too much confusion and is irrelevant

Scarlett555

You missed my point. Why does a family who has gay or lesbian parents need to be defined as anything other than ‘a family’ ?

It feels identity politics is dragging us all backwards as a society.

Intereting Errol, though your biological identity is also important to your descendants and that would be lost if you had it is a personal medical record rather than a matter of public record. E.g. the children of a person who was adopted might want to trace their biological grandparents even if the adoptee didn't.

ErrolTheDragon I quite like your idea but I don't think a child should be able to access details of an anonymous sperm donor until they are 18 - which is the law now.

If a document contained sperm donor details it would be too much information for a child imo.

so...can a GRC be revoked?
Aren't they supposed to declare their intention of living in the assumed gender permanently?
And hasn't this person just gone and done the complete opposite?
strikes me that Freddie (along with many trans people and I'm thinking especially of TW sports players) hasn't faced up to what 'changing gender' really means. Fine if you want to be a TM. But then you won't be able to have uniquely female experiences like pregnancy. Fine if you want to be a TW. But you can't then compete in womens sport. Just decide which is most important to you because you can't have both.

Perhaps an alternative would be for there to be two documents. One would include all the biological factual information about parentage available, and could constitute the start of the child's medical record. As such, it would be subject to the normal rules of medical confidentiality. It would belong solely to the child, there would be no reason for alteration after birth except if it was proved that the father had been misidentified. The second document would be the 'social' data. This would be the public document used for passport applications etc. It would work for adoption, gay parents etc. Under this arrangement, Freddie could be the mother on the former and one of the parents on the latter.

Would there be any significant downside to this?

It was biology that was behind Freddy's strong desire to become a parent. It was Freddy's biology that allowed Freddy to become a parent. I can't understand why there is such a denial about the biology that brought this child about.

I'm glad about the ruling. Once we have men giving birth it further erodes what it is to be female. Having Freddy as father on the BC would only be another step on the slippery slope.

No @Pota2 - Freddie wanted to have the mother section replaced by father or - at a push - parent.

The term mother on a birth certificate refers to the person who gives birth to you. It means something. The other parent (if named) is often a legal fiction but that is a whole other debate.

Every child deserves to have a mother named as such on their certificate. Only women can give birth, only women can be mothers

"Freddie is asking to be named a parent, not father. And the unmarried example doesn’t work here because in other cases, there will be another parent (the mother). So I cannot see how letting Freddie have the status of parent will have anything to do with unmarried fathers."

No, McDonnell applied to registered as the child's father - the court summary is here www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/TT-and-YY-Summary.pdf

In any case applying to be "parent" makes no difference to my point, which was about the removal of the requirement for a child'd mother to be recorded (either in person or by virture of being married to the child's father).

Scarlett555 this is the definition of mother in your scenario www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/37/section/27

Scarlett555 There are too many variables for biological fact to be recorded on one form. What about lesbian couples who egg share with IVF so the embryo from partner 1's egg is transferred to partner 2 who grows the baby and gives birth? Who should be recorded as the mother then?

At the moment the law says it's the person who gives birth who is the mother. As the judgment makes clear, in law mother=person who gives birth. Of course, the law also recognises that other women can become parents, have equal parental status and be a parent on the birth certificate. Socially and (most importantly) for the child, the 'other' female parent is just as much a mother as the mother who gave birth.

There are too many variables for biological fact to be recorded on one form. What about lesbian couples who egg share with IVF so the embryo from partner 1's egg is transferred to partner 2 who grows the baby and gives birth? Who should be recorded as the mother then?

I've given some thought to that upthread. Electronic tax forms can be as short or long as necessary to cover a multitude of options which may or may not apply - there's no technical reason that the same type of thing couldn't be devised for birth certificates.

Most on this thread seem to lack the understanding of what a huge privilege it is to get pregnant by the person you are in love with.

It is often impossible for LGBT people to do this and I therefore have a lot of empathy for Freddie.

ArabellaDoreenFig The rainbow flag symbolizes LGBT hence those with kids are known as rainbow families 🏳️‍🌈

TheMost Freddie is asking to be named a parent, not father. And the unmarried example doesn’t work here because in other cases, there will be another parent (the mother). So I cannot see how letting Freddie have the status of parent will have anything to do with unmarried fathers.

There is another consideration - nothing to do with the status of gay or trans or donor parents - which makes this an extremely important verdict, I think.

Currently only married fathers can register a birth on their own because married men are automatically assumed to be the biological father of any child their wife bears.

Unmarried fathers can only register a birth if accompanied by the mother of their child. Women can also register a birth with "father unknown". Many womens groups fought for the right for women to continue to do this, mainly to protect women who may have good reason - eg abuse or rape.

If Freddy is allowed to register his child's birth as an unmarried father them surely that right has to be extended to all unmarried fathers. Which would be a terrible thing for women.

Well give it a few years and children, as they tend to do, grow up to believe that their parents know nothing and are actually very stupid. And tell them so.

Let’s hope Freddie has a thick skin because they’re are some home truths coming their way that definitely trump ‘I always wanted a
Spider-Man cake for my birthdays but you always got chocolate and I hate chocolate’.

If Freddie was living as their 'authentic self' @Scarlett555, they wouldn't have pursued. Because, as I'm sure you're aware, men - authentic or otherwise -can't become pregnant if someone squirts sperm up their vagina.

Sorry I know the discussion has moved on but

a rainbow family is when a child has LGBT parents

So, a family then?

Why the requirement to tag rainbow on to it ?

We all have a human right to know where we came from and just because some people lie or distort the truth does not make it okay to willfully distort facts in legal documents (some mothers lie about who fathered a child but that doesn't make it okay to document their or any child's existence via legal fiction).

Yes!

@123bananas

Unmarried fathers legally have parental responsibility if they are named on the certificate, it wasn't the case until sometime in the last decade or so.

I think the Birth certificate is generally used to ascertain parental responsibility. This is fallable too... The unmarried father on my dd1's birth certificate is NC with her and was abusive to me so generally I would want to wipe away his assumed 'parental responsibility' that he has gained by default. So to me, the birth certificate doesn't mean much, really.

With scientific advancements, surely any genetic history that a person might need to know will be easy to ascertain in the not toi distant future?

I guess it depends how much value you hold in a birth certificate and the words on it.

Yes Pota the mother doesn't have to be recognised in law as a woman but they do have to be a woman biologically. The judge's conclusion says:

"The principal conclusion at the centre of this extensive judgment can be shortly stated. It is that there is a material difference between a person’s gender and their status as a parent. Being a ‘mother’, whilst hitherto always associated with being female, is the status afforded to a person who undergoes the physical and biological process of carrying a pregnancy and giving birth. It is now medically and legally possible for an individual, whose gender is recognised in law as male, to become pregnant and give birth to their child. Whilst that person’s gender is ‘male’, their parental status, which derives from their biological role in giving birth, is that of ‘mother’."

I am very relieved that the courts now have a legal definition of the term ‘mother’. Well done to all those who worked hard in this ruling, to protect this.

Some one asked for the actual judgment and I don't think it's been listed yet so here it is:
www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/TT-and-YY-APPROVED-Substantive-Judgment-McF-23.9.19.pdf

The judgment actually says that mother doesn’t have to mean woman. I don’t think it’s the triumph that is being claimed.

Its imperative that Freddie is listed as the Mother, as that is the truth-imagine they were listed as Father and years down the line realised they'd made a huge mistake and actually wanted to live as a woman again....Biological truths matter