Everyone can now retire at the same age as biological women - Trans/EU court decision

[HowWasLastnight]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44612117

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44612117

That’s the plan anyway. First edge men and women to the same age (65) then increase both to 68.

I wouldn’t be at surprised if this kind of action has contributed to the change, all be it in a small way.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/state-pension-age-workers-people-extra-year-68-increase-retirement-age-david-gauke-a7849091.html

www.waspi.co.uk

Oh ffs!
I'm 62, I was originally allowed to retire at 60, then 62, now it's 66!
I'm going to self identify as 3 years older so I can claim my lost pension contributions. The ones I've been paying since I was 16 years old!

If only they'd look at the WASPI claims instead of this niche entitled shite!

WASPI yes, and what about ill men claiming disability benefits, they will be annoyed too, they would like early retirement backpay and to not go through assessments?

I don't get why the pension age is different?

I always assumed it was a throwback to the days when the man was thought of as the main breadwinner so would be working longer.

Siwel, my Nan always said it was because grooms were expected to be older than brides, so the retirement age difference allowed them to retire together!

I can’t find any good resources for an alternative viewpoint, but it seems that a 5 year age difference occurs pretty much world over.

Anyway, I have no issue with equalising the retirement age, the only problem is that a certain group of women born in the 1950s have had this change foisted on them without enough warning to plan for it.

Ah ok that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying

To be fair people are living a lot lot longer than they were. The retirement age could even be higher arguably.

What many of the WASPI women are saying is that we paid in , and our contributions have been robbed. Also that many work in manual jobs where physically they are no longer able to manage...this of course applies to men too. However jobs for the over 60s are pretty difficult to find if you are not professionally qualified. Women are bearing the brunt of government austerity programmes. Of course not having a job will mean they can get on with the caring of their parents, but for free, without a pension to live on,. Marvelous.

I think the WASPI women have very valid viewpoints.

In fact, it occurs to me that the reason for couples to be able to retire together, as my Nan explained it, was so that these newly retired husbands weren’t forced to fend for themselves while their wives were out at work.
Heaven forbid a man be forced to make his own lunch!

I found this part of the ruling a tad alarming - it looks like the ECJ consider self ID legit...

The ECJ said people who had lived for a significant period as a gender other than their birth gender and who had undergone gender reassignment surgery must be considered to have changed gender.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/26/uk-wrong-to-deny-transgender-woman-pension-at-60-court-rules?__twitter_impression=true

I haven't read it yet but the judgment is here if anyone is interested:

eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62016CJ0451&qid=1530012353353&from=EN

What is the latest position in Brexit negotiations around the ECHR?

Do you mean the CJEU (ie the Court of Justice if the European Union) rather than the ECHR/ECtHR (ie the European Convention on/Court of Human Rights)?

This was a CJEU decision. As far as I'm aware there's no talk of getting rid of the ECHR as part of Brexit (although the stories do suggest replacing it with a British Bill if Rights every so often), the role of the CJEU post-Brexit though is still being fought over.

I am grateful to you for explaining the different courts.

That should have been Tories not stories on my last post!

I've had a skim through the judgment and it doesn't look like there is much of concern. It is very clear that it only applies to pension entitlement and I would guess should affect a small number of older transexuals now that the pension ages are aligned.

Still, I generally find the judgments of the CJEU to be less logical and more unpredictable than the UK courts, so if we do end up getting out of their jurisdiction as part of Brexit that would probably be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Just read the judgment, the words sex and gender are used interchangeably, for anyone who knows the difference its almost unreadable.
The judgment itself makes a mockery of the GRA because its essentially saying that you don't have to comply with it to have actually changed your sex.
If I was the UK judge who referred it, I would send it back and ask them to clarify the difference between sex and gender in their decision. Considering the SC last week made a huge distinction in the gender neutral passport case, it must be on their radar.

Does make me wonder though if this is a back way round gay marriage in NI. If someone can change their sex without annulling their marriage in the UK then there could be a "same sex" marriage that took place in NI and denying a same sex marriage between 2 people who have not changed gender would be discrimination as the CJEU put it in this case "the situation of a person who changed gender after marrying and that of a person who has kept his or her birth gender and is married are comparable."

On the BBC article it says
And so it concluded that UK legislation "constitutes direct discrimination based on sex" and is therefore in breach of European law

So does this mean that it's illegal to have different pension ages for different sexes and therefore they ruled in the transwoman's favour, or is it specifically because the person was a transwoman who couldn't get a GRC?

I'm a bit confused.

If I was the UK judge who referred it, I would send it back and ask them to clarify the difference between sex and gender in their decision.

To be fair, the way the CJEU use the terms 'sex' and 'gender' doesn't seem any different to how they were used by the Supreme Court when they made the referral (www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2016/53.html). It's just a shame that the law has never properly distinguished between the two, and has had to codify this concept of 'gender' into law in recent years without a proper definition.

So does this mean that it's illegal to have different pension ages for different sexes and therefore they ruled in the transwoman's favour, or is it specifically because the person was a transwoman who couldn't get a GRC?

The second one.

I've had a skim through the judgment and it doesn't look like there is much of concern. It is very clear that it only applies to pension entitlement and I would guess should affect a small number of older transexuals now that the pension ages are aligned.

Nice try. But State Pension Age is drafted in terms of sex. The applicant doesn't have a GRC but the court found she was female. The court must therefore have found her sex to be female. The court reiterated the Directive that there can be no discrimination on the basis of sex (in its area of competence eg social security, services and employment) so the obvious implication is surely that such a person cannot lawfully be excluded from a sex = female space, service or employment. It's a restatement of PvS and very powerful.

Snappity, I think you are partially right, obviously I'm not a lawyer.

I think that it might be that they have treated the transwomen as if they had a GRC because they shouldn't have been denied one due to their marital status. In which case it was legal sex (not biological). There is no 'proportional means to legitimate end' (or whatever that phrase is) to discriminate on the basis of legal sex, hence the ruling on the case.

That's how I would read it anyway. It's just the status quo.

Is not the point that she would have qualified for a GRC under the existing (and still current) rules if not for the refusal to divorce?

So it really says nothing about changes to the GRA or self ID, as she was not self IDing but wanting to access a GRC in the appropriate way and willing to go through the procedures required to get one.

Other than the divorce.

I would suggest that everyone ignore Snappity as they clearly have a rather poor understanding of the law.

I think I'll stick to what the judgment says instead:

As a preliminary point, it must be noted that the case in the main proceedings and the question referred to the Court concern only the conditions for entitlement to the State retirement pension at issue in the main proceedings. Accordingly, the Court is not being asked to consider, generally, whether the legal recognition of a change of gender may be conditional on the annulment of a marriage entered into before that change of gender.