"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"

I'd bet my mortgage that Freddy is not paying for this. I'd bet my mortgage, that this is not really about Freddy. This is what transactivists calls strategic litigation.

The word mother needs to be decoupled from female biology.

Isn’t there a problem with Parent 1 and Parent 2 in that it seems to give preference to the mother so is contrary to equality of the sexes? It’s never possible for a child to be without a legal mother but a child can be born without a legal father (when born by donor sperm and the donor is not reflected as being a parent). So that would mean that dads are seen as secondary.
And in any event, Freddy would need to be Parent 1 (as all children have a legal Parent 1) which everyone would know is the mother, so Freddy would no doubt be unhappy with that too.

EyesOpening

Datun
'Moreover, we do not have evidence before this court as to how other members of society would feel if they were no longer to be referred to on their child's birth certificate as a mother or a father but simply as 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2'.'

They could ask them. I'd support that in a heartbeat.

Do you mean you’d support them asking? Rather than support being called Parent 1 or 2?

I'd support them asking, if they were saying that the problem is they don't have evidence of how society would feel being called parent one and two, rather than mother and father.

This is just a hunch, but I suspect most women would like to be called mother, rather than parent one, and the same for dads.

Also, who is parent one and who is parent two? I wonder what the bloody hell it's based on? Oh wait, no I don't.

Cue a campaign, six months down the road, to have the words Parent One erased, because it means mother.

I can so clearly picture the tantrum ExH would have had, had he been put down as parent 2. It would have been monumental and made my life a living hell for months, then brought up for years. He would also then used it as a get out clause for any parenting, 'what do you expect me to do? I'm only parent 2...'.

That is an awful, awful situation for your friend Justnamechanging03. Just horrific. I have never personally accessed any support (I have never been pregnant after assault, but have been attacked a few times), but friends who have, found personal counselling better than support groups, that might be worth a shot? I really hope your lovely friend is doing as well as possible and has a beautiful, happy relationship with their child filled with joy, for them.

hopefully the funding has dried up to prevent a ECHR claim.

Freddie is already saying this will be taken all the way to the ECHR.

It's all about Freddie's wants trumping the rights of the child. I find it deplorable.

Living as a man... Just going to my ante-natal classes and popping my folic acid tabs. As a man.

I am glad that this has stopped here and hopefully the funding has dried up to prevent a ECHR claim. It’s a historical record of an event. It’s not a way for a person to get validation of their identity. It’s for the child, not the parent. I also think it’s deeply wrong that birth certificates are retrospectively altered for those who have GRCs. It alters history in a way that is impossible in reality.

justnamechanging03

Ideally he would be eligible for the same support services as women who've been assaulted, because they're supposed to be for people of the female sex.

If those services won't take him because of how he identifies, that's appalling. And illegal. Those services should be open to him if he's comfortable using them.

I could go off on a massive rant about how we got to this stage, but suffice to say I'm furious on your friend's behalf.

@justnamechanging03 LGBT foundation?

Let me get this right.

I'm not allowed to use the pronouns she/her of someone who has recently birthed a child, because that person 'identifies as male'.

What the actual fuck is the world coming to?

We've already accepted he's in the same camp as women for this. There was a potential aspect of him being trans in there (somthing said along the lines of 'crossing a Trans if there list) but nothing for it to go forward either. It's just bad there aren't the services there so he can talk about it

Name change fail. Have reported.

So he referred it to police intially but they said there wasn't much point as there would be very little evidence so case wasn't taken forward and no they didn't.

Unfortunately that's often the case for women too. If your relative feels it was because of their identification as a man, that's possibly illegal discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, or sex if the police wrongly perceived they were male.

I wonder if this will trickle down to service providers trying not to use the word 'mother'.

Already happening, believe me.

@justnamechanging03 Good grief that's shocking. Did the police not offer any referrals for support?

"I also don't understand how the dysphoria doesn't extend to birthing a child!"

Well it certainly makes the wanting to live as/be accepted as a man hard to understand, doesn't it?

I have a trans family member born female but identifies as male. He is currently 28 weeks pregnant. He is different I would say to most trans people I have heard on here. He doesn't think most trans women should be in sport, or hospital wards. He doesn't agree it's children trainstioning and he doesn't understand always understand why some trans people get pregnant and make everyone change there language. He's fine when people call him mother and she as he says that people shouldn't have to change there language. Though Idividulay with him he prefers it. He has a grc. Should his be revoked no. Did he chose to get pregnant no. He was sexually asuakted by a man (he gets very angry about trans people and crime statistics) who was under the influence and didn't find out he was pregnant till late. He would have had to go through delivery if he terminated. He's turned it on his head and think he'll be a great parent. He knows the reason he can be pregnant is cause he's female and his sex is female. In terms of Freddy we've had this discussion (we are both pregnant hence the discussion) and he thinks it's ridiculous. But dosnet see why parent couldn't be an option for people. (Not a default) as it's not only trans identifying people who could benifjt.

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 ?

I could live with 'gestational parent' if the other box is labelled 'sperm provider'.

'Parent 1 and Parent 2' would have unintended consequences in terms of men's view of their own parental responsibility, so that's a no from me. A subtextual implication that the father is inferior to the mother is unhelpful, to say the least.

Glad to see the courts still have the sense to recognise that birth certificates must record material sex-based data.

His passport and NHS records were changed to show he was male, but he retained his female reproductive system
What a travesty, considering he made an appearance on a maternity ward nine months later.

Sophocles totally agree with both points. A birth certificate is not a validation exercise for either parent, and a GRC is not worth the paper it's written on if someone can swear to something and then go off and immediately do the exact opposite

I have no sympathy for them either. They are a journalist for a major publication that is read worldwide, not some naive child being used as a puppet by a higher force. Freddy is the higher force.

The reason I think that Freddy was manipulated is because of something which Freddy's mother said in the documentary.

According to Freddy's mother, Freddy was at university in Edinburgh (a long way from Freddy's family in the south of England) and was unhappy, and said 'I'm a boy and I want to be a boy, and I realise this is how I've been feeling all my life'. Apparently this was a complete surprise to Freddy's mother. I assume Freddy was late teens at this time.

I'm not defending anything Freddy has said or done since then, though.

Previous thread about Freddy.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3688952-Seahorse-BBC2-now

And who is paying to take this to court? I'm sure Freddy isn't acting alone.

I just read the Guardian report; from it, this:

His passport and NHS records were changed to show he was male, but he retained his female reproductive system

NHS records changed to show he was male? Golly, isn't that dangerous? How can that be allowed? What if Freddie (or others in Freddie's position) come to be suffering from cervical/ovarian/uterine cancer, or from an illness that presents differently in biological females than it does in males?
Showing up at the doctor's as a man could mean misdiagnosis... and then legal action against dr's for missing the problem.

Sorry, off on a tangent I know, but such basic terms (male/female/mother/father) are important.