Views on Spousal Veto any Trans Widows/Trans People willing to share

[Wanderabout]

Is the Spousal veto important if you are married to someone who changes their gender? Why/why not? Do you think it should go?

Asking because I know nothing about it and know it is part of the consultation.

If trans woman have always been women, why would they marry and father children?
Imagine being married and living in the same house as someone who wants to transition but can't, and knows/believes its because you used the veto.

Before someone can transition their marriage should end. They should have to wait 6 months before they can marry the same person, to give their partner the chance to not be coerced.

Is a spouse transing considered grounds for divorce?

I feel the spouse does not consent then the marriage can be annulled.

The consultation document explained the current situation really clearly, and goes over the questions that are asked in the consultation response. Page 35 for the bits on marriage and civil partnerships.

The whole document is essential reading though if you're at all interested or planning to respond.

Consultation Document

Thanks for responses I really appreciate all views.

The consultation information is hugely biased and I don't trust it at all. It looks like it was written by Stonewall and has ridiculous omissions and inaccuracies.

I am waiting for guidance by Fair Play For Women and WPUK. Anyone else interested can follow them on twitter for updates.

At present, the spouse can frustrate an application for a GRC by not cooperating with the procedure

I think that instead, the spouse should have an automatic right to dissolve the marriage.

Thanks Debbie that makes sense.

My understanding is that if a spouse does not consent then the applicant is issued an interim GRC instead of a full one. The interim GRC does not legally change their gender but either party can use it within 6 months to dissolve the marriage, after which the applicant can get their full GRC.

If the spousal veto was removed, spouses would instead have to divorce if they didn't want to remain married. They would either have to cite unreasonable behaviour or separate and wait for 2 or 5 years.

To add, one part of the public sector equality duty is to foster good relations between those with a protected characteristic and those without. Removing a no-fault way of ending a marriage/CP (spousal veto) and forcing people down the much more acrimonious path of divorce flies in the face of this.

A marriage or CP is a contract between two people. If one party changes the nature of that contract, of course the other party should be able to end it without further ado.

Thanks Pencils.

YY Debbie. Before the GRC is issued, the spouse should be asked if they want to stay married to the transistioner. If they agree in writing, the marriage continues. If they disagree or don't reply by a certain date, an immediate, no-fault divorce should take effect. In cases where the spouse cannot reply (e.g. in a coma), a judge could decide but I would hope for a presumption of divorce unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. Transition fundamentally alters a marriage by fundamentally altering one of the partners, presumption of divorce is the fail-safe option.

To be clear, the above is my "ideal world" wish, not the current situation. The current annulment turns faithful wives into strumpets and legitimate children into bastards by pretending the marriage never even happened (paraphrasing Greer).

OK this is something I don't get about the whole thing actually. I don't get why there should be a veto process from anyone else (bar medical professionals, I guess in a way) however, I do think a spouse 'changing sex' should be a valid reason for divorce. Mind, I think ANY reason should be a valid reason for divorce tbh.

I may not have thought the veto thing through properly though, I am sure there are some reasons for it. Just I cannot really think of any..so long as the person is not forced to remain married through it all

I don't think a spouse should be able to veto their partners transition. It should however be grounds for immediate divorce.

I hope this is one issue all sides can get behind and find an actual solution for as it was introduced as a panic measure in the original GRA and was not really consulted with the partners of trans people. it was due to the fact that equal. marriage didn't exsist at the time that it is there and is now something that needs to be changed. I agree people should be allowed to devorce or stay together as they see fit and that there marriage should not have to be dissolved and redone because of legal issues.

I disagree that the marriage should be annulled. That would make it as if it never happened, rewriting history in the same way as changing the transitioner's birth certificate (something else with which I disagree). I also do not think it should be grounds for a no-fault divorce. The transitioner makes a choice to transition, they could choose not to.

IMO transition should be ground for divorce, with the fault placed firmly and clearly upon the transitioner. The exception being if the couple choose to negotiate a solution.

I do not, however think that the spouse should have a veto over any aspect of the transition. In that respect transitioning is no different to any other body modification.

Divorce is dissolving a contract and means assets/childcare etc all need splitting.
Annulment is saying the contract was invalid so I guess the legal ramifications are different e.g. no presumption of shared split of assets.
That probably makes annulment less costly and complicated than divorce which might be an advantage?

DebbieInBirmingham Are you who I think you are, sister? No need to disclose anything other than a "Yes" or "No" answer

I don't know Quentin. The consultation says: If spousal consent is not forthcoming, this can substantially delay the legal gender recognition process whilst the dissolution of the marriage takes place. This can be particularly time-consuming if the dissolution is difficult, perhaps because it involves complicated financial or child contact arrangements. Complicated dissolution arrangements can also be costly;

So it sounds like divorce. Maybe just change it from annulment to divorce if people don't like the legal fiction that the marriage never existed, which I can understand.

I don't think a spouse should be able to veto their partners transition. It should however be grounds for immediate divorce.

This is pretty much how it works AFAIK, except it's currently annulment, not divorce. It's not really a veto on transition, it's a veto on changing the marriage contract.

The consultation document talks about single sex situations such as

^Single sex services are permitted where:

only people of that sex require it;

there is joint provision for both sexes but that is not sufficient on its own;

if the service were provided for men and women jointly, it would not be as effective and it is not reasonably practicable to provide separate services for each sex;

they are provided in a hospital or other place where users need special attention (or in parts of such an establishment);

they may be used by more than one person and a woman might object to the presence of a man (or vice versa); or

they may involve physical contact between a user and someone else and that other person may reasonably object if the user is of the opposite sex.
In each case, the separate provision has to be objectively justified^

Sorry, but I don't get how this could possibly operate. For example, many trans women are claiming they are women and it looks as though the proposals will go along with that. So if they are to be women how on earth could the above conditions operate? For example, a trans woman says she is a woman and has the necessary paperwork how could a natal women legally object to, say, sharing a hospital room with a trans woman. If the natal woman says "that person is a man" and the trans woman says "no I am a woman and here is my paperwork that says I am a woman" what could the hospital staff do to disallow her in the same space as a natal woman, even if the trans woman had had no surgical or medical treatment? The hospital staff would in effect be saying, "actually you are a man", thus negating all the intentions of the GRA, which allows the trans woman, in effect, to change sex legally (even though it is impossible to change sex biologically).

It's an impossible situation.

Sorry wrong thread