What positive outcomes would you like to see from GRA reform?

[Wanderabout]

One thing I would like to see and that urgently needs done is (in Rowantrees words):

"clarify and make explicit the difference between sex and gender and recognise the widespread confusion /potential risks / issues / obfuscation and / or misunderstandings which currently exist."

It needs to be explicit about the confusion and issues and address this clearly in legislation and/or practice.

The original GRA was designed as a legal fiction for a tiny number of gender dysphoric transexuals. We now have mass confusion about girl brain vs boy, magical thinking and biological denialism.

The purpose and meaning of enabling anyone to be legally recognised as the opposite sex needs to be crystal clear.

What else?

[ReluctantCamper]

relegate trans women, based on their biology, to be a separate group with fewer rights

I'm going to ask this really loudly for the benefit of the people at the back

WHAT RIGHTS DO TRANSWOMEN NOT HAVE NOW THAT THEY NEED?

never seen a sensible answer to that one, but hope springs eternal

[Ereshkigal]

And there is the biological elitism out in full force again wanting to relegate trans women, based on their biology, to be a separate group with fewer rights.

There is no "biological elitism" (lol) here. We just don't believe they are women and don't accept that they have the right to use women's facilities with us. We don't wish that they should have less rights. It's simply that violating female people's boundaries and riding roughshod over their rights to privacy and dignity isn't really something a male person can claim as a human right.

[Crazy3]

I want the law to acknowledge the truth too.
You should not be able to rewrite history.
Perhaps papers to represent gender change may be helpful for people who want them but only in the case of surgical change not just the way you feel.
You should not be able to be legally considered female if you have a penis and are not actually a female. I.e born a girl.
I want to be referred to only as a woman or female as I was born a girl.

[theOtherPamAyres]

I would like to see a move towards a change in the terminology that describes transition.

A Feminine-trans (person) for Transwoman
A Masculine-trans (person) for Transman

For three reasons

1. 'Feminine' and 'Masculine' describe the gender social constructs. TransWOMAN and TransMAN imply a change of sex.
   

1. The terms do away with the need for words like Transchildren, TransBoy, TransGirl - labels that imply an inevitable journey into transition.
   

1. The terms describe perceptions and feelings (of femininity or masculinity) rather than biological facts.

[OldCrone]

Thats how it has been for 8 years, basically just saying 'I propose treatment' would protect you under gender re-assignment, and yet there are no significant problems arisen since the EA 2010

That doesn't change your legal sex, though. Only a GRC does that. How can there be a protected characteristic of sex in the EA2010, in any meaningful sense, if everyone can choose their legal sex?

[garam]

Well first they need to self identify as female. Nothing else. No therapy, no hormone treatment, no surgery, no change of appearance.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Great.

So now we have females, young, vulnerable transmen and transwomen and all males in these safe spaces.

They all are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Except that they are not.

Allowing self id takes away that protection by putting men as a class into the safe spaces.

This is what I would like to see addressed properly.

Thats how it has been for 8 years, basically just saying 'I propose treatment' would protect you under gender re-assignment, and yet there are no significant problems arisen since the EA 2010

[OldCrone]

Fairenuff

Anyone who doesn't get it after reading that, doesn't want to understand.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Fairenuff Will you stop making sense, It's really fucking boring.....

[Fairenuff]

Males as a class are a risk to those weaker or more vulnerable than them because they are more violent and commit more crime and prey on women and children.

Let's make some safe spaces for those people at risk from males as a class.

Into all these safe spaces go the females and young.

Some people who were born female start identifying as male. They are called transmen but often they are still smaller than other males and at risk.

So lets let them still use the female safe spaces as they do not carry the same risk as a male born male.

Often they do not have a penis for example.

OK great.

So now we have safe spaces for females, young and vulnerable transmen.

Some men are born male but now identify as female. They are transwomen.

They also want to use the female safe spaces because they say there are at risk from males as a class.

Law is put into place to allow these vulnerable transwomen to also use the safe spaces.

Ok great.

So now we have safe spaces for females, young and vulnerable transmen and transwomen. They are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Men as a class are not happy about this. Men as a class also want access to female only safe spaces.

How about, anyone male can also use these spaces.

Well first they need to self identify as female. Nothing else. No therapy, no hormone treatment, no surgery, no change of appearance.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Great.

So now we have females, young, vulnerable transmen and transwomen and all males in these safe spaces.

They all are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Except that they are not.

Allowing self id takes away that protection by putting men as a class into the safe spaces.

This is what I would like to see addressed properly.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

And that OldCrone is the heart of it.

A year or so ago that is probably what I was feeling. I have always been accepting of trans people, couldn't care less if a man looked feminine or a woman looked masculine. I was a young adult through the 80s, some of my earliest hetero crushes were on men with lots of make up, some in dresses. That's how 'uncaring' we were back then.

I really don't understand why this generation is suddenly all for having discrete boxes in which they must lie, or jump from/to in order to be, well, something or other!

It would be far more freeing to simply live as you choose, regain some of that flower power, hippydom and mix it in with the spirit of Adam Ant and Bowie. Just live your gender bending lives and sod the labels.

But that attitude seems to make me a hidebound T word, and I simply 'don't understand'.

Well, that would be right. I don't understand why so many young people are so eager to build themselves a restrictive box in which to live. I thought youth was about railing for freedoms... having more not self imposed martyrdom and a self restricted identity!

[OldCrone]

The original GRA came about because of a case in the European Court of Human Rights, where a transwoman had been 'outed' to her employer because she couldn't change her NI number and they knew through this that she had worked for them before as a male.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwin_v_United_Kingdom

The ruling required the UK to make provision for such people (fully transitioned transsexuals) to change their legal status. AFAIK there was no requirement for new birth certificates to be made available, just that the individual should be able to have some sort of legal recognition as their acquired sex.

My feeling is that we should be working towards a society which is more accepting of diversity. We should accept men who want to look like women and vice versa. We should accept that being a man does not necessarily mean being masculine, and a new category of transwoman would be fine. Women should be able to choose to be transmen.

The original ruling would never have happened in a more enlightened society, where difference was tolerated. People who have transitioned should be able to live their lives free of stigma and discrimination. People should not have to hide their past or the fact that they have transitioned, because it shouldn't matter.

Trying to hide the truth, and fabricating legal fictions to aid this, just causes divisions in society and makes people less accepting of diversity.

The transgender movement seems to have come about from people being pushed into narrower and narrower gender boxes. But instead of letting us all escape the gender prison, it just lets people jump from one box to another. And we're all supposed to pretend not to notice when they do so.

[Bespin]

so that would be a no then, so far only the op as actually come up with something that is A actually related to the GRA not the equality act and B an achivible outcome.

[Bloodmagic]

"The original GRA was designed as a legal fiction for a tiny number of gender dysphoric transexuals."

I honestly think the GRA needs to be completely revoked. It was nonsense to begin with. There's no need to let someone legally change sex when they can't physically change sex. Gender reassignment is already a separate protected characteristic, but males with gender reassignment surgery should NEVER be counted as female under any circumstances.

Scrap the lot.

Honestly, that little bit of legal fiction is what got us into this nonsense in the first place, it created a benefit to those who want to lie about their sex and set a precedent that everyone else should go along with it.

THEN add 'gendered expression' to the list of protected criteria, meaning that a man can't be discriminated against for dressing/behaving in stereo-typically feminine ways and a woman can't be discriminated against for behaving in stereo-typically masculine ways. Clarify that this is secondary to existing sex based segregation, i.e. women can have separate sports teams and women who don't dress/behave in typically 'feminine' ways cannot be discriminated against in them, but men are still excluded regardless of appearance/behavior.
Transgender men can't be denied housing based on them being transgender and dressing in 'feminine' ways, but they can be excluded when the housing is female only.

When this happens (I have confidence that sanity will eventually prevail) it will be an outrage among those who have already transitioned. I do know some transmales who have convinced themselves that they are 'literally female' now that they've transitioned. That is what legal gender recognition promised them - cut off your dick, take drugs forever, permanently physically mark yourself as 'other', and you WILL be female. It will all be worth it in the end. We will put it on all you documents, and let you into the women's sports teams and facilities because you will really BE a woman, or at least close enough as makes no difference. To go through all the suffering and then be told "PSYCH! You're still a man! Changing sex was never an option, you've maimed yourself for nothing! No women's anything for you, get back in men's facilities and spaces where you always belonged but now without your genitals or a functional endocrine system." there's going to be mass suicides. All they ever needed was some proper therapy and a dose a feminism, and instead they've been led along a path of drugs and surgery that goes nowhere. It's a tragedy, but the longer it's put off the more people that will be drawn into the lie and end up suffering.

[WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice]

Why is the law currently allowing only people with this psychological disorder to have it legally affirmed?

How did this ever happen?

If you will let people who have a disorder where they believe they belong to the opposite sex change their documents, why not people with others. For example - how about transabled people competing in the paralypics or getting a Blue Badge and DLA?

How about being able to have a different weight recorded in boxing - middle-weight identifying as featherweight?

How about the Peerage? Why not let some people be recorded as the descendents of certain Lords and entitled to inherit land?

If someone genuinely has dysphoria about these things which is persistent and unchanging, surely they also have the right to be legally affirmed and entitled to the name and all the rights, protections and provisions of the people they claim to be?

What is the difference with sex dysphoria? I can't see it. Please explain.

[WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice]

We need this to happen. Whatever difficulties male transpeople have, it doesn't alter the fact that female people have needs and wants that are distinct from them. The GRA needs to recognise this.

I completely agree.

But then what would the GRA actually be, because this would mean an end to changing birth certs from M to F?

[Baroquehavoc]

Wouldn't it be nice if women were allowed to distance themselves from transwomen the way that transwomen are allowed to distance themselves from men?

We need this to happen. Whatever difficulties male transpeople have, it doesn't alter the fact that female people have needs and wants that are distinct from them. The GRA needs to recognise this.

[Angryresister]

Yes , while dysphoria should be treated as a psychiatric disorder, this should not entitled anyone to change their documentation or have access to the opposite sex protected spaces, or have cosmetic changes funded through the NHS. In fact if you have a Certificate at all, it should just say as an addition that gender is ..., but it has no actual effect in practical terms.

[WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice]

Gender/body dysphoria sounds bad. It isn't up to women and girls to be the medicine, forceably giving up our right to say no to men and boys in our spaces to make males with the condition feel better.

It isn't right for the state to facilitate male deception at the expense of women and girls.

Obviously being male and 'presenting' in ways normally associated with women could lead to feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment. Especially when using the correct sex segregated facilities for you. There could be raised eyebrows, comments, homophobia. You may feel the frisson of fear someone with dwarfism or who looks very camp or who has a facial disfigurement may feel in this intolerant world we live in. However this is all part of this condition when 'treated' by changing sex steroetypical presentation and doesn't give males a free pass to call themselves women and invade women-only spaces and provision or call themselves women to make life easier for them.


So perhaps 'changing gender' isn't the best solution for people with dysphoria if the awkwardness/embarrassment/fear of using their own sex facilities, etc makes life impossible. Just dress a bit more gender neutrally like women often do.

So changing birth certs has to stop. Males feeling entitled to move among us women undetected has to stop. Males moving among us detected but legally protected from us needs to stop. Males calling themselves women has to stop. Sex change is a lie and it hurts women.

There needs to be a new solution to dysphoria that the individual takes responsibility for. The solution is not and should never have been eroding women's rights and words. This must stop.

Back to the drawing board.

[BarrackerBarmer]

Wouldn't it be nice if women were allowed to distance themselves from transwomen the way that transwomen are allowed to distance themselves from men?

I'd like to belong to a class of people that have the right to declare they exist completely separately and fundamentally differently from another class.

I'd even be happy to provide incontrovertible and factual evidence, as opposed to 'because I say so'.

I want the GRA to recognise SEX with crystal clear definitions and acknowledgement of immutability.

I also demand the right not to be assigned a default 'gender identity'. I WILL NOT be categorised by a faith which has been assigned to me, falsely and without my consent.

I just want the truth. I want the law to acknowledge truth.

[thebewilderness]

The government is facilitating fraud.

[ArcheryAnnie]

In an ideal world the GRA would be scrapped. You cannot change sex, and changing people's birth certificates is a rewriting of history and a denial of reality.

[thebewilderness]

FYI, access to women and girls in various states of undress isn't a right.
Access to public facilities for the disabled is a right, and in some cases, such as schools, the law mandates male and female sex segregated facilities so that no students will have fewer rights than another.

When they wrote the gender reassignment laws they gave those who identify as gender reassigned more rights than others. Those special rights to use whichever public facilities they choose on any given day need to be revoked.

[Gncq]

If I were to ever fully accept the idea of a being able to change the sex on your birth certificate to me it would have to be completely clear who exactly is able to get one, and this IMO should be someone who has had full and complete surgical modification to match their chosen sex (although I am against phaloplasty so if I had the final say phaloplasty not necessary but penis inversion absolutely necessary) and a diagnosis of sex/gender dysphoria. Men with AGP not permitted.
So a vanishing minority but I would be absolutely happy for true transsexuals to change their birth certificate. BUT exemptions to still apply as per above suggestions.
These are reforms I would like to see.

[puckingfixies]

the huge numbers of F2M,s who don't seek Genital surgery !

and contrary to belifs most F2M ,are gay , and they do have relationships with gay men !

F2Ms with no genital surgery, ie people with vaginas, having relationships with gay men. I understood that most gay men would not entertain the idea of a relationship with a F2M, so I'm assuming that the gay men that they are in relationships with are also F2Ms with no genital surgery? So, lesbians are now gay men? No erasure here then.

[Wanderabout]

And what is the HRA 1998?