HMRC gives trans people access to VIP hotline

If nothing else, you are doing an excellent job of demonstrating why a person might sometimes need to conceal their trans status to avoid discrimination and harassment.

That's not what the "right" is and you know it. You are being obtuse.

The right is the one to not have your GRC / sex-change status outed to all and sundry by a third party (HMRC in this particular instance).

To give an example: someone in witness protection has the right not to have letters sent out to employers with their old name on. Someone who is in possession of a GRC has a similar right.

the right to attempt to pressure others into pretending they can't tell what sex you are isn't one I recognise I'm afraid.

returning to the article for a moment, the 'special helpline' does sound like a bum deal

Because trans people exist and are entitled to rights recognition and privacy much as many people on this thread clearly wish this was not the case.

I looked up Goodwin vs UK

this is utterly fascinating:

The Court also found no justification for barring the individual due to her being transgender from enjoying the right to marry under any circumstances. It concluded that there had been a breach of Article 12

so Goodwin (a man) presumably wanted to marry another man. Why on earth was this deemed a breach of his rights when every other gay man in the country was at that time also unable to get married to the person of his choice. It's so interesting the way 'trans' makes people lose their grip on reality

and despite all the patient explaining on the thread I am afraid I am still at a loss to understand why the state should be involved in helping an individual to attempt to mislead others about their sex.

Why even bother commenting if you've neither read the article nor the previous comments on the thread? You need a gender recognition certificate and all that entails to be able to access the PDI line.

Sex isn't what's being treated as special category data here, or else everyone would be using the PDI line since everyone has their sex recorded by HMRC.

DeepWinterSleep, you've done a great job of patiently trying to explain this, but I fear there are none so blind as those blinded by outrage.

I spend half my professional life dealing with HMRC. I can echo lots of posters and assure others that access to the PD1 line isn't the VIP fast-track perk you might think.

As to why trans people with GRCs have access to this, it is not to do with "special secrets" but everything to do with boring old data protection; legislation that is outwith HMRC's remit. It not only includes MPs and Royals and trans people (although they are the most headline-grabbing) but also encompasses tens of thousands of civil servants including HMRC's own staff, members of the armed forces, those with particularly complex tax affairs, those who are in witness or victim protection schemes and so on. It's not a particularly exclusive club.

For those who are genuinely interested in how trans people with GRCs were granted access to this, you should look up the Goodwin v UK and I v UK cases. They ran concurrently and judgement was passed down on the same day in 2002. In essence, Goodwin's NINO allowed their employer to discover they had changed sex and outed them. Letters were also sent to employers with their "old" sex referred to.

These rulings were key factors in the passing of the GRA in 2004.

This thread and the article that inspired it just provides yet another reason why it was always a damn stupid idea to allow people to legally change their sex.
And there were already plenty of reasons.

It's amazing people will twist themselves in knots ignoring the laws and the facts

🤣🤣🤣 irony!

Neither is sex despite the new guidance from EHRC trying to say it should be.

Ooh I need to phone them tomorrow…. May try it 😭😭😭😭

Are men seriously allowed to change gender and get their pension early? Is this for real?

Surely the whole point of keeping it a secret would be that they aren’t allowed to collect their pension as the gender they are living with?

The article is quite clear that it only applies to GRC holders and refers to this fact several times. Did you actually read it?

Article says since 2005. 2 decades not "several" and definitely not 1000 years 😂

Can’t we all just say we might be trans & call that hotline?

(And now I need to know who on this thread works for HMRC, who is a celebrity, and who's in witness protection...)

DH has just explained they are in an extra secure unit and have extra special clearance.
As PP have said, it's almost certainly not quicker to get through.
It's also not perfect - I got a letter telling me they knew I was the higher earner so I should pay back child benefit. Since DH was overseen by the secure unit, the person who wrote the letter shouldn't have been able to see his records and my records at the same time.
However as it turns out, they had just made stuff up because that year DH was the higher earner. As he told them when he rang and tore a strip off them.

There are fewer staff working on that line because there are fewer people calling it. And often, they need to call you back because there's no-one authorised to handle your case.

The dedicated line is not just for trans people it's for everyone assigned to PD1

Well, I would say getting a dedicated line to call HMRC is special treatment, but I guess it's however you view that. And yes, I just assumed it would be faster because, as we are so often told, it's a tiny minority of a tiny minority who hold a GRC, so I assumed the phone queue to speak to someone would be shorter! I know my trans identified family member doesn't have a GRC, so I'll see what she has to say about some getting special treatment and others not.

edited for spelling

They don't.

I have the "VIP" phone number too, it's usually slower. Especially as nothing can be done online and every issue requires a phone call.

its a disgrace that a man who now says he’s a woman can claim the state pension as if he is a woman. I’m glad the age is now equalised and I assume once a certain date passes these men won’t be able to claim, at tax payer expense, earlier. Women’s pension age was lower for a good reason.

Other than the SP surely tax affairs are the same for men and women in which case a special line is indeed indulging the fetish. Worth the £6 to get the extra pension money isn’t it!

Well how would they know, unless the employee discloses it?

Interestingly, post FWS, the govt has ruled that employers must use employees biological sex for reporting gender pay gaps - even if they have a GRC they must not use the acquired gender recorded on the GRC.

So it follows from that, employers must collect biological sex data.