"Transgender man, 34, loses legal battle to be named as the father on his child's birth certificate as Supreme Court refuses to hear his case"

The family courts are unbelievably 'woke'. So, I would imagine, is the ECHR.
Can't see the ecthr as the forum that paves the way for motherless children - it would be disastrous for the court and the coe (coe's Catholic countries are unlikely to embrace the notion of 'Holy Mary parent 1 of God')

On a feminism point of view. Because he identifies as male he hasn't been able to access support locally about the assault. Any advice ?

That's really dreadful. I'm sorry your poor friend didn't receive support from rape crisis. I'm sorrier still that he was in the position of needing their services in the first place.

There is a charity called Support Line specifically geared toward victims who are isolated, vulnerable or at risk and which claims to support all victims of rape and sexual assault.

I hope he finds the help he needs to process the effects of this horrible crime. Having also been a victim I send him solidarity and understanding.

[quote justnamechanging03]@Gncq he can't actually he's tried to access them and been turned away, that's the problem. he tried complaining to no avail. [/quote]
Why are they making a huge deal of not being a woman whilst trying to access rape crisis services? It seems counter intuitive.

[quote justnamechanging03]@Gncq he can't actually he's tried to access them and been turned away, that's the problem. he tried complaining to no avail. [/quote]
Oh hell.

This is the flip-side of those fricking gender policies, isn't it? They don't use their right to provide a single-sex service, and focus on gender identity. So women can access sexual assault services, transwomen can access sexual assault services, but transmen... can't.

Bloody hell. This is horrendous.

Freddie, on the very slim chance you see this, there's something you need to know. It'll be a shocker, so brace yourself

The words "gestational parent" and "mother" are...

SYNONYMS

They're. Fucking. Synonyms.

bangs head against wall

@Gncq he can't actually he's tried to access them and been turned away, that's the problem. he tried complaining to no avail.

Biological woman gives birth - hold the front page.

A great decision, and the right one, from the judge. If I was a wee bit more cynical I would say the whole thing was a giant publicity stunt, which is awful for that innocent baby. As others have said, who puts so much time and energy into living as their 'chosen' gender, then gets pregnant only weeks after getting legal recognition. It's literally the most female thing imaginable. How does that work with their body dysmorphia, seeing your female body growing a living baby inside it, your breasts growing, feeling a baby kick in your uterus, then finally pushing it out of your vagina and feeding it with your engorged breasts? How and why would someone who believes themselves to be intrinsically male, reconcile this?
It seems like the pregnancy was initiated to prove a point, and if that is the case, its awfully sad.
NONE of this is about that baby, it's ALL about the selfishness of this person.

On a feminism point of view. Because he identifies as male he hasn't been able to access support locally about the assault. Any advice ?

Your friend can access rape crisis support for females, like all other females do.

I wonder if this will trickle down to service providers trying not to use the word 'mother'. It's a mother who gives birth, regardless of their gender.

I think this has important implications for surrogacy. I always refer to the "surrogate mother and scolds tell us they must only be called** "the surrogate" (or other terms like gestational carrier) because they don't want to be called mother because it's not their baby and they are not the mother. But legally, as the law currently stands, they certainly are the mother until such time as the parental order is made. And what else should we call a newly delivered woman? On another thread two male commissioning parents are quoted as saying it was very important for everyone (at the hospital) to know that they were the parents of the baby. But they weren't, in law, and that baby has a mother.

If the legal status of mother is erased it has massive implications, many of which I doubt we even understand, or have not yet thought of, for all childbearing women. We must not allow it to be erased.

(Which reminds me, I really must get on with writing to certain hospitals that have drawn up surrogacy policy and refer only to "the surrogate".
If anyone would like a link to the FOI's where those policies can be found let me know and I'll post them.

I just can't get over a parent dragging their child through the courts in order to get their birth certificate changed to reflect your wishes. Just seems so wrong and I'm glad the court has put an end to it.

Very very ironic that Freddy cruelly dismissed women who had lost babies wanting to be called mothers. Apparently that’s selfish and ‘birthing parent’ is fine. Yet, Freddy spends what’s likely to be hundreds of thousands on insisting on being called a father. Well Freddy, that’s selfish and ‘mother’ is fine. Get over yourself.

The GRC should at least state what they consider “living as man/woman” and should have grounds for the GRC to be rescinded.

This is the bizarre situation with the GRC - it is a one way street. Its existence can be used to claim the holder certain privileges and treatment ie. a transwoman can claim access to spaces and services that another male cannot. There are very few if any checks to prevent potential fraud, yet there is no real definition of the terms of issue of the GRC and absolutely no consequences of not following even the widest intentions of this terms (living in the ‘acquired ‘sex’’).

Also, it’s dangerous to allow change on the basis of one person’s feelings.
We currently limit the number of mothers to one. That means lesbian women whose partner gave birth can’t call themselves mother on the birth certificate either. The best they get is parent. Mother according to the birth certificate can only be the woman who gave birth, nobody else, and there can only be one and there must always be one. If the court had given in to Freddy’s demands, it would have caused potential disruption to the whole system plus I bet there would have been a call for birth certificates to be retrospectively amended so that fathers who now feel like mothers could have their identity validated too. It’s good it was just nipped in the bud completely.

When you put it that way, WeeBisom, I can't help but think this ruling is a definite positive for those women who object to their children's 'Parent 2' insisting on co-opting the word mother.

Because it means a person who's legally a woman can be legitimately described as a father.

Like mothers must have a different relationship to fathers ( beyond the purely physical )

Is there a checklist of things I must do as a mother /father so I can see if I did it right?

WeeBisom you have it right. The family courts are unbelievably 'woke'. So, I would imagine, is the ECHR. You can bet your boots they made their decision on the basis that there was no legal loophole through which to pull this one, because the law as it determines the rights of the child is transparently, unambiguously clear. And the complexities that would arise from someone else holding the legal title of 'mother' than the parent who had carried and birthed that child are so mind-blowingly complex and potentially unethical that they would have been opening a real Pandora's box had they done so, and knew it. The distinction that Freddy was requesting would probably have required an Act of Parliament to bring about a change in the law.

The lawyers think it's terrible that the strictures as they currently stand don't allow our society to be more 'progressive'. You've only got to read their commentary to deduce as much. They don't like it, but they are stymied by the law as it currently stands.

There'll be pushback. And I doubt the rights of the child will take top priority in those conversations.

Turns out that many TRAs are actually incredibly binary, despite their claims to the contrary. They have no issue with strict gendered roles for men and women - they just want to be the opposite one to what their body is.

If you read the court of appeal judgment they were actually incredibly accommodating to trans identity, so it's really weird that Freddy is making such a big fuss about this (but then again, Freddy also had a tantrum at some medical forms being pink and insisted on getting blue forms instead!) The court said that while 'mother' refers to the female sexed parent who carries the child and gives birth, this says nothing at all about the gender identity of the 'mother'. The court rightly pointed out that because Freddy has a GRC, Freddy can be recognised as a man who is also a mother. You would think that trans activists would be pleased with this ground breaking concept that a man can also be a mother. By insisting that only women can be mothers, and only men can be fathers aren't they putting people into gendered boxes and insisting on that dreaded heteropatriarchal binary?