Please can someone explain why the GRC process needs to be simpler?

[OlennasWimple]

I'm drafting my response to the GRC consultation. I know what I'm writing for the latter bits, where it gets into the interplay with the Equality Act and single sex spaces. But I'm getting quite cross with the first bits about the actual process and the cost of applying for a GRC. I fell like I must be missing something, because surely we aren't going through the whole consultation process - and hostile debate on self-ID - because some trans people don't want to fill out a lengthy form and pay a few hundred quid (or fill out a form to apply for a fee remission)?

This is a genuine question, not intended to be a re-hash of the arguments for or against self-ID, just a discussion on the actual process of applying and why it's so terrible at present.

Transgender is not intersex, and intersex people hate being used in these arguments.

I agree, but....

They are genetically male, sex is determined at the point of conception.

The OP in question was extremely annoyed when a GC poster (really rudely IMO) called her man. She had been brought up as female, identified as female, looked female. And the way she carried herself was completely female. So for anyone to call her a man, which according to GC thinking she is, was wrong (not to mention unkind).

When determining what makes a man / woman it’s necessary to go beyond strictly chromosomes.

I cannot believe that 'blind canal,' 'women might abuse the system' Snappity is still here. GF indeed.

They are male but we should call them women because we should. It's really evil of transactivists to take that respect and decency that intersex people need and deserve, and shoehorn it into a screaming tantrum that any regular bloke should be called a woman just on his say-so.

Thinking that obtaining a document means one has changed sex is to fetishize that document. I don't mean via a sexual fetish (although of course this can be an aspect of cross dressing). I mean fetishize in the traditional sense.

Fetish
An inanimate object worshipped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fetish

The idea that a document has any bearing whatsoever on one's sex (remember that sex is shorthand for reproductive sex) is quite clearly to fetishize that document and consider it to have magical powers. And perhaps even to be inhabited by a spirit (the female essence).

I'm of the opinion that this document has no place in modern law. We no longer base our laws on religious beliefs or superstitions. When the GRC was created, our legal system created a fetish (of the type defined above by the Oxford Dictionary). Not their best idea.

'Check your privilege'. SarahAr thanks for that, I actually laughed out loud on the train.

I checked my privilege out of the library.

Oh, wait, that was a book. Sorry, I got excited over nothing.

Funny thing, I read somewhere that it is not biologically possible to change sex. Actually it was quite a lot of places. Hrmmmm. Are all facts transphobic?

If people have been changing sex for decades, how many:
a - Men who 'became' women have gestated a baby?
b - Women who 'became' men provided sperm for a woman to gestate a baby?

If the answer is 'none' - then the project failed.

Thus the GRA needs to be repealed as it turns out - nobody did actually change sex after all.

Well, at least at the beginning, Snap put forward one of the more articulate defences of this nonsence that I’ve read in here. And that says a lot about the status of that argument.

Yes the whole thing should be repealed. Keep it for the 5000 or so that have done the GRC thing. Stop changing documentation . As everyone is pretty much recognisable as their original birth sex, they can still call themselves why they like and dress however they want and the rest of us can be tolerant to a point, but not beyond where men try to access women's protected situations. The deed poll thing needs looking at too as this and the GRC are furthering deception fraud and worse.the whole process if there is to be one should be tightened up tothe poit where it is really not worth pursuing . When crimes are committed the statistics should not be given as fantasy gender but as biological birth sex.

If its going to be easier to change your legal sex than claim Child Benefit for a third child, then there's a problem with people's values.

"They are male but we should call them women because we should. It's really evil of transactivists to take that respect and decency that intersex people need and deserve, and shoehorn it into a screaming tantrum that any regular bloke should be called a woman just on his say-so."

Agreed, I would never be disrespectful of an intersex person, most people wouldn't. Which is part of the reason some people have started to claim that transgender is an intersex condition.

Or access legal abortion, upstart crow.
No one talking about removal of medical gateways to that.

If its going to be easier to change your legal sex than claim Child Benefit for a third child, then there's a problem with people's values.

This summarises my concerns really neatly, Upstart. I don't think that trans people should be forced to navigate their way through the sort of bureaucracy that Douglas Adams lampoonedin the Hitchhikers' Guide, just to make their lives difficult on purpose.

But I'm yet to be convinced that out of all the various forms and processes that we ask Brits to complete in order to benefit from something provided by the state, that the GRC process is the one that is ripe for change and should be take priority.

I'm still (genuinely) ready to be persuaded, as I accept that having never seen the process up close and personal, there may be aspects of it that I am failing to understand.

But I read para 85 of the GRC consultation doc and got quite cross:

^We are also aware of the argument that applying for a fee remission can be burdensome. It involves the completion of a form. In the past it has involved producing a number of documents to prove your level of income and/or savings, such as bank statements, payslips and tax returns. Transgender people argue that this is an additional burden above and beyond the others described in this
consultation document^

I may even have said the words "boo-fucking-hoo" at the apparently unfair requirement to complete a form in order to apply for a fees remission.

Dear god they cannot be pretending that’s a serious point?

Apparently so, Nana.

Maybe if we all just self-ID as poor we will all get full benefits without having to fill in a form?

I had to take the government to a court of law to get access to the provision my son needed. This lot apparently can’t be expected to fill in a form and find a bank statement.
We’re learning so much about who matters in society, aren’t we?

It's because the fetishists have taken over...they don't suffer from gender dysphoria, hence getting it re-classed so it is no longer a mental health issue and wanting legal rights as women without having to prove that they have it.

Sounds like poor old Anne Boleyn died unnecessarily. If only she had known that gender was assigned at birth she really could have said that Elizabeth was - God be praised! a boy without a winkle, and kept her head.

YY smiths.

For people whose poor MH makes it difficult to fill out forms etc, there is help available from the CAB and other welfare rights organisations, as frequently relied on by PIP/ ESA applicants.

Not ideal perhaps but help is there and simply having help to fill out a means testing form wouldn't divulge any sensitive info unlike having to have someone help you with a PIP/ESA form which needs to be absolutely explicit in order to make your case.

Also, GRC applicants who would qualify for a fee reduction under means testing are likely to already qualify for, or be already receiving other means tested benefits, as the threshholds are pretty standard across the systems - otherwise how would they be supporting themselves? In which case those means tested benefits could 'passport' them to a free reduction. There would be some who fall through the gap of passporting but they could likely access the CAB for form filling help.

I am familiar with PIP/ESA and fully agree that there need to be checks - the problem with PIP/ESA is more that the DWP try not to accept the evidence they are given, ie they question/ ignore consultants letters etc and rely on their own assessor to 'diagnose' you.

It sounds like the process to get a GRC is actually much easier than PIP - once you have the diagnosis it is just paperwork gathering and you have no deadline or loss of income/ home at stake unlike with benefits.

Also, if you can't get your spouse to agree, then get divorced first. No one should be able to unilaterally vary the terms of the terms of a binding contract (which marriage is); in most if not all other circumstances that would be unfair and illegal.

Interesting seafret, thanks.

I shall be sure to check my privilege the next time I fill in forms related to my son's SN. Or when we search for non-existent or permanently locked disabled toilets. Such a privilege that is.

I shall check my privilege extra carefully when I read articles on the pay gap.

Oh FFS, they have to provide financial information to prove they need a means tested benefit (fee remission) and that is a problem?

Do you know what, I really hate doing my tax return. I think HMRC is guilty of literal violence and I demand the law is changed to remove the cheating-bastard-phobic provisions that demand we tell the government each year how much we’ve earned.
This could actually become fun

"sounds like the process to get a GRC is actually much easier than PIP - once you have the diagnosis it is just paperwork gathering and you have no deadline or loss of income/ home at stake unlike with benefits."

Think you're onto something here.... if I could get a GRC, do you think the DWP would accept that as proof of disability without all of the hoops I usually need to jump through...?