Spousal veto

I think that feminists, like the OP, who are arguing this on the basis that "it's not a same sex marriage, transition doesn't change sex", whilst they might be correct biologically (if not legally), are potentially damaging other women by doing so. Think about what the point of feminism is?

Pedantically following this line, has consequences.

(I am making the assumption that the OP is a feminist).

I don't know if the spousal exit clause can be used for divorce or just for annulment. I think either should be an option because many people don't want to pretend that a past marriage never existed,

I agree spousal exit should be a choice between annulment or divorce.

@PlanDeRaccordement a good point. I hadn't thought of that. But I'm not sure the Veto really helps either. I can't help thinking that you should just not be able to change history. The people who decided this would be possible, have clearly not thought about the consequences.

Does annulment allow for a financial settlement?

Some interesting points. I agree that no-one should be able to rewrite history this way. However, since they can, then it ought to be grounds for an annulment i.e. the marriage was and is null and void. My concern is that the veto has added yet another and separate rule that just confuses the issue.

The ideal solution is to change the annulment grounds to include a changing your gender and at the same time winding up the veto.

This is not ideal because spouses would have to remain married until the transitioner had legally changed gender - there would be no way of ending the contract before the terms were changed.

I don't know if the spousal exit clause can be used for divorce or just for annulment. I think either should be an option because many people don't want to pretend that a past marriage never existed, however unhappy they were in it. That's rewriting history too.

I guess, in principle, the veto has to stay until the annulment legislation is changed. But it is a truly strange and sloppy law.

then it ought to be grounds for an annulment

No. Dissolution or divorce is better for any children involved. Annulment means there never was a legal marriage and so any children are in fact bastards/illegitimate. This can affect inheritance and have religious stigma. Annulment is not an appropriate way to end what was initially a legitimate marriage.

Midgebabe.

Its not difficult. If a person obtains a GRC then for legal purposes they are the sex they transitioned to. If a man is now legally recognised as a woman it then follows that if they are married to a woman, then the marriage is now a same sex marriage.

As the wife is not a lesbian why would, or should, she be made to stay married to someone who is now legally the same sex as her?

Some interesting points. I agree that no-one should be able to rewrite history this way. However, since they can, then it ought to be grounds for an annulment i.e. the marriage was and is null and void. My concern is that the veto has added yet another and separate rule that just confuses the issue.

The ideal solution is to change the annulment grounds to include a changing your gender and at the same time winding up the veto.

Why have the veto rather than having say transition as valid grounds for Divorce?

This is basically what the spousal exit clause does (not clear whether it's always an annulment or dissolution or whether divorce is an option too? IMO it should be for those who prefer that route).

Current grounds for divorce (England and Wales):

1. Adultery
2. Unreasonable Behaviour
3. Desertion
4. 2 years separation with spouse's consent
5. 5 years separation without spouse's consent

So without the exit clause a spouse has to either cite unreasonable behaviour or wait up to 5 years before she can even file for divorce, let alone tie up all the loose ends.

In many, many cases it would be a piece of piss to cite unreasonable behaviour but without the spouse's cooperation it would be up to a judge to decide (see important case law upthread) and as we are discovering, there are some extremely 'woke' judges so it's a bit of a crapshoot.

Also, women face enough opprobrium for wanting to leave their transitioning spouse in the first place. How much worse when he tells everyone she has cited unreasonable behaviour as the reason?

The exit clause gives either spouse a swift, no fault way of ending the marriage before the terms of that contract fundamentally change. They still need to sort out what happens with property and children of course but I cannot fathom why some people think any part of this is unfair.

Or I couldn't until I read CharlieParley's posts. Thanks for the lightbulb moment Charlie, I had been struggling to understand why there was so much focus on this small part of the GRA.

As someone mentioned upthread, divorce means a financial settlement. This might be bad news for some transitioners.

I've been advised that the same financial remedies are available following disillusion/ annulment as following divorce.

As someone mentioned upthread, divorce means a financial settlement. This might be bad news for some transitioners.

Responding to OP. Being married to someone who has transitioned 'to become a woman' does not make the woman they are married to a lesbian. Her sexuality hasn't changed, she isn't suddenly attracted to women.

I fully agree with this. To me, the partner is forced to become pansexual- as in sexually attracted to a person regardless of sex or gender. But you cannot Force a sexuality on anyone. It is part of human sexuality to be a variety and it’s not phobic to have a sexuality that excludes certain sexes or genders.

To me, we have to let a spouse out of a marriage if their spouse transitions to the opposite gender legally. Otherwise you are forcing a person to be essentially pansexual, which is no different from how they forced homosexuals to be heterosexual by pushing them into heterosexual marriages.

In normal contracts (and in simple terms) there are two types of breaches, those which go to the core of the contract, breach of which renders the contract void (e.g. contract is to buy a fiat and a Skoda is produced) and more minor breaches which give rise to the possibility of damages (e.g. contract is for a fiat in good condition and it breaks down on the first day of ownership). Obviously marriage contracts are different, but in my view the only way that changing legal sex would not fall into the first category is if we think that sex is unimportant, when in fact it is of fundamental importance to the vast majority of people. It is this fundamental importance of sex that the extreme ends of trans ideology seek to attack by arguing that sex does not exist/is a spectrum/is terribly complicated and/or that even if it does exist it is transphobic to focus on it.

This was posted by CharlieParley earlier in the thread, and explains why the spousal exit clause is incompatible with self-ID.

The spousal exit clause needs to be abolished for self-determination of legal sex to work in practice.

Filling in a simple form to change your legal sex without the current gatekeeping requirements and safeguarding rules will not work if a spouse's objection requires a temporary GRC to be issued. There's no provision made for that in the draft GRA bill published by the Scottish Government for instance.

There isn't some huge injustice they're seeking to address - the spousal exit clause stands in the way of self-id. So it has to go.

I hadn't thought about it in this way. Self-ID means that the transitioner is the only person who has any say in the transition. So to have self-ID, the spouse's ability to halt the issue of a GRC until the marriage has been dissolved has to go, along with the requirement of a doctor's diagnosis and all other gatekeeping.

The ability of any other person to have a say in the issue of a GRC cannot co-exist with self-ID.

Isn't it just really that marriage is a legal contract.

In any other context, one of the contractual parties doesn't get to change the fundamental essence of the contract unilaterally. They need the consent of the other And you renegotiate or terminate.

When your spouse transitions, even if you are on great terms and support their decision, you need to make a decision for yourself as to whether you still want to be married because it changes what you consented to all those years ago so fundamentally. Simply put, you may just not be attracted to them any more.

No one is saying that being a lesbian is a bad thing. What is a bad thing is waking up one day and being told that you are now a lesbian (or indeed if you were a lesbian before you are now heterosexual), your partner converted your relationship overnight without your consent and you now have literally no way to get them to come to the table to discuss dissolving a relationship status that you are unhappy with - you have to take the hardest route possible and file for a divorce, which may not be possible for some time in our system where a quick no fault divorce is unavailable (and even if a no fault divorce was available, filing for divorce unilaterally on the basis that your spouse is now trans is so much more painful as an idea than discussing with your spouse in advance, agreeing that you will support their transition but cannot stay married to them on that basis and agreeing to get divorced as amicably as possible, particularly if kids are involved. The best separations are ones that everyone has some say in and wants to move forward with.).

Responding to OP. Being married to someone who has transitioned 'to become a woman' does not make the woman they are married to a lesbian. Her sexuality hasn't changed, she isn't suddenly attracted to women.

I'm a lesbian and I've been present at two lesbian events where a TW has turned up with a straight wife, with both of them claiming to be lesbians. The female partners on both occasions were very uncomfortable. They were heterosexual women who possibly for the first time in their lives were seeing women dance together, kiss and talk openly about being lesbian. Loads of women in short hair and boots and make-up. Women self-confident in their lesbian sexuality. Neither couple ever came back.

Transwomen are not women. Transwidows are not lesbians. You have to be attracted to women – the cunty kind – to be a lesbian. So you're being homophobic, OP, to suggest that it's okay for a woman to claim to be a lesbian when she's not.

If my husband turned around tomorrow and told me he wanted to become a woman

Please can people read the trans widows threads before they say this? It's really not how it happens.

Thanks Tinsel, have I misunderstood the claims that a GRC-holder cannot be asked to show a copy of their GRC though?

I'm not very familiar with this part of the law. I'm thinking about circumstances in which DD might need a clear audit trail to show who her Dad is. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is if he died without a will and she needed to prove her right to inherit, but I'd be interested if anyone can think of anything else?

I would never enter into a lesbian marriage, not because I’m homophobic, but because I am not a lesbian. If my husband turned around tomorrow and told me he wanted to become a woman that’s fine, I’d support him but I couldn’t possibly have him as my wife because I’m not attracted to trans women and simply couldn’t accept it. The point of contracts (like marriage) is that there is mutual agreement, without that the contract is void. In these instances I think that transition should give the innocent party an immediate right to terminate the marriage. That way everyone gets what they need.

PerspicaciaTick

Jaxhogit is presumably a special case because the GRC retrospectively changes the basis of the marriage. No other grounds for divorce rewrites history in the same way

Yes, indeed and no need for the qualifier "presumably"

But we already have a mechanism for this - divorce and annulment. I don't see why transgenderism merits being a special case

Because it is a special case. The person transitioning has already made it a special case. None of the examples affect a person's legal status; a grc does.

I married a man. I did not marry a woman. I don't want to be married to a woman. I don't have to justify that choice to anyone. I don't have to have a religious reason for that nor do I have to prove I'm not homophobic. Although frankly even if it were homophobic I'm entitled to be homophobic about who I'm married to.