So how do I live in the female gender?

[Definitelynamechanged123]

There are 8834 people in the UK who have a Gender Recognition Certificate.
I am one of them.

To get it, I had to show evidence of transition, surgery etc. Lots of hoops

I also had to swear a Statutory Declaration. I had to go to a Magistrates Court and swear a legal declaration in front of a magistrate. It was all very formal.

I had to swear this:

" have lived as a (insert ‘male’ or ‘female’ as appropriate)
throughout the period of years before the date of this statutory
declaration and I intend to live in that gender until death."

This declaration is legally binding. Apparently if I don't follow this, I can be done for perjury.

So...how do I live as a female and live in that gender until death - I have sworn to do this in front of a magistrate.

I was very surprised that so few trans people have Gender Recognition Certificates.

Well, yes. A few of them do, and indeed have. So we won't 'seriously stop that' ie put up and shut up however much women are expected to do this.

This is what I think. People will continue using whatever toilet or changing room they want.

The only difference now is that if a woman spots a penis in the ladies changing rooms and reports feeling uncomfortable with that, she won't lose her job.

It's been thought through.

And we can tell the difference. Maybe you can't, which is why you've posted. But maybe you are in a very small minority of unobservant women?

TBH if a woman dresses a man, 99% of women will still suss her out as a woman.

Please write the word penis without using a number 1.
We're grown ups here. Do you think it's a banned word - or 'disguising it' with a 1 makes it different?

Of course no one is going to call the police.
They'd either challenge the 'man' themselves or call a shop assistant.

And if as a woman you're mistaken for a man in a changing room or a toilet, so what? There are worse things that happen.

“Seriously stop that”? @Catisgluedtome

No we won’t. What about the past ten years makes you think we would?

The onus is not on women to fix things for the entirety of humanity.

We have enough on our plates. Not our problem.

I'm signing out. A lot of stereotypes on this thread and generalisations. Not all transmen have pumps to enable them to have a penis. Some stick with a vag1na because they don't want invasive surgery.

Given how powerful brains are, it is entirely reasonable that some people are born in female bodies and not comfortable with societal projection of what a 'woman' even is on to them, and same for people born into a male body not comfortable with societal projection of what a 'man' is.

Biological unique traits aside, it's about time females in general stopped accepting lower quality pay, lower level jobs and the rest of the issues biological born females face and fought for equality. Transgender people are trans gender (not trans biological sex!) and are a very small segment of society. In the last 15 years we have seen a worsening outlook for us women and a lot of progress has been wiped out.

It is a shame the focus has been on a very insignificant issue for women compared to the fact we face lesser pay, worse monetary accumulation throughout our lives and numerous other issues and yet these poor minority transgender people seem to be the focus for the last decade and how they are a threat to women in particular when the real threat is a small subset of biological born males who are psychopathic and continue to hurt us to this day. Bring back feminism.

What would you say these commonalities are?

Speak for yourself. OP has fully transitioned. I wouldn't mind her in my changing room or loo at all.

You are unable to write vagina or penis. You use a 1.
Why? Does the actual proper spelling embarrass you?

If you want to look like a man or you do already, that's not our problem. if you are worried about being called out in a changing room or a loo, you have a choice - to change your appearance. or not use communal facilities.

Is a fear of being raped common to all women? I’ve had this conversation with a few friends recently because I keep seeing it on MN and the answer was universally “no.” It doesn’t cross my mind that I might be raped every time I leave the house. I also might be hit by a bus or diagnosed with stage 4 cancer tomorrow or murdered by a mad axe man but those things don’t cross my mind either.

All the things I mentioned in my post. Not all women enjoy those things, obviously. But the majority do. That is, the majority of women are feminine and enjoy more stereotypically feminine things than they do stereotypically masculine things. I go to the ballet and you don't often see single straight men there. The men are usually there with female partners or are gay. You don't see groups of straight men at the ballet. Big sex differences in the audiences for ballet and football.

I doubt OP will answer as they seem to be replying only to posts that give them the opportunity to express some shared expereince of "womanhood", but still...

Forgive the obvious question, but if you don't know what it means and you don't know how to do it, why did you swear you would do it? What did you think it meant when you were swearing?

If your question is disingenous and intended to show that a legal challenge is unworkable, I agree.

What you are highlighting is the unworkableness of trying to use a legal fiction to fit "gender", whatever it is, into pre-existing laws and conventions which were logically and meaningfully based on sex instead of building new laws and conventions from the ground up based on gender.

Keep them based on sex and the logic is very simple - just go back to the first principles. Sex based laws and structures exist to mitigate a sex-based need, risk or inequality. It is easy to justify them where they are still needed, and to drop them when they are not.

Try to keep the same outcomes but base them on gender and the whole thing falls apart. There's no longer a way to think logically about what a law means because there is no route back to first principles, needs, risks and inequalities. The people demanding the rights and accesses of sex based on gender are not the same people that had those needs, risks and inequalities and so their claims make no sense.

So I hope that first legal challenge does happen because it will be a clear demonstration that the entire concept of a GRC is flawed. A legal assertion can override laws but it can't override reality.

OP, I'm glad your extreme cosmetic surgery has made you feel better about yourself, but all you have done is enacted a physical representation of your own ideas about your and the opposite sex.

The changes you made to your body or the reasons you made them, while undoubtably extreme and demonstrating a committed belief on your part, ultimately have nothing to do with actually being a women or being female. It's something that makes sense to you because of how you think about men and women, but the "woman" you have fashioned is no more representative of or connected to the reality of being female than the stereotypical little green man is representative of or connected to actual life on other planets.

That is not to say she isn't real or meaningful to you, or that she doesn't bring you genuine ease and happiness. It's just to say this is a you thing only. It is very meaningful and important for the person inside your head but it doesn’t create a new reality for the rest of the world.

Quite. No one born female is ever going to have a functioning penis.

And yes, I’ll share a space with those born women.

I thought the point @Definitelynamechanged123 was making was that he’d made a nonsensical legal declaration “to live in the female gender” that was supposed to be legally binding, when no one knows what it is or means to “live in the female gender” and no one could be prosecuted for not keeping that promise.
The only way to live “as a woman” is to be female, because the only thing we all share is our biology.

So the whole thing was a sham.

It would initially have allowed him to marry a male partner, but then gay marriage was legalised so that was available without a GRC.

And the SC ruling clarified he is not allowed to use women’s spaces, so yet again the GRC is pretty pointless.

OP, I am glad you are happy within yourself. I agree the declaration was a pretty silly thing to ask a person to promise.

Lol. Okay. I love football.

You're lucky.

Most of us are aware of personal risk in certain situations.
If you aren't street-wise and observant of risk that's not good.

Getting ill? Presumably you've not had to experience friends or family with terminal diseases. You're lucky.

So you agreed to it in a magistrates court but you didn't know what you were agreeing to ?

Live however you like, just abide by the law on single sex spaces and you'll be fine. I expect in practice you'll be ok in ladies toilets as most won't challenge you. I feel a tiny bit sorry for the trans people who have been so massively let down by organisations that were supposedly supporting them wasting years trampling over women's rights instead of actually seeking to improve trans rights but my sympathy is very limited. Because mainly I feel sorry for the women whose careers etc have been destroyed by this activism.

Also try giving up six years of your pension & loving the way men could get 5 years of NI paid for them, but women couldn't.

I'm not worried I'll be raped every time I leave the house no.

But there are places I won't go ever/ at night.

I wouldn't want to be in a space I can't easily leave with an unknown male (or even some known ones) because my experience tells me I could be raped.

To be female it means being born female, having periods, having horrific period pain, having breaststroke that swell and sore when you have your period, having PMS, being pregnant, giving birth, having a miscarriage or many, breastfeeding, having a female brain, dealing with sexual harassment from men from a teenager, going through menopause, having breasts, having smears and internal scans, having mammograms, this is what female is, all of this can only be experienced if you are born female, being female is 9 months pregnant giving birth, being ripped apart, being sewn up, hearing your baby cry when they are not with you but you can hear them as they are part of you, wanting to kill anyone who harms your child as you held them inside of you for 9 months, a bond no man will understand as your child is part of you, being female is a power and wonderful thing and a unity with women who experience all of the above,

Your declaration was that you 'intend' to live in X way until death. As long as that intention was sincere when you made it, then it doesn't matter what happens afterwards. Hence why detransitioning after a GRC isn't perjury. So you're fine.

I'm glad you've found a way to love your life that brings you contentment. IMO your surgery/medication is a way of alleviating the symptoms of your dysphoria, and I'm glad they do that for you. Life your life expressing yourself as you, but please respect that female single sex spaces are not for you, and use third spaces or those designed for your natal sex. If there is any campaign to increase (or even mandate) these third spaces then I'd be very on board with this.

There isn't a way to be a woman though. It's a biological status, not a role.

How are you coping with PMT and periods, not to mention the menopause. Only asking.

So living as a woman means going to a ballet show? By that metric, I'm not a woman even though I'm currently pregnant.

We're not actually asking for much as women. We pretty much just want to use our own bog and changing rooms and feel safer.

I for one want a lot more than this. This is not my main issue with GRCs at all.

I don’t want my biological sex erased. I don’t want men, who have historically long oppressed my sex, now ‘passing’ as me, making a mockery of me.