Just logged onto the gov.uk website to start completing the GRA consultation paper.
In the introduction, it states that a survey was commissioned amongst the LGBT community as to why individuals hadn't completed a GRA application. Many replies related to cost, unwillingness to share medical details, and what were felt to be intrusive personal questions.
But the biggest reason, 44%, was because they did not fit the criteria.
According to the consultation's preamble, the impression given is that it's a hugely bureaucratic and intrusive process, so it's the process that needs changing. But the 44% quoted above don't meet the criteria to even enter into the process.
I can't believe the government is expending such a huge amount of money and time to make a process easier for 56% of a very small percentage of the population ? Surely the real intent is to move the goalposts, so that a minimum of self ID is sufficient to legally change the most fundamental aspect of any human - male or female. How can you "change" a birth certificate. It's a historical record of what was at a given point - ie your birth. For all I care you can identify as a bloody dolphin the day after. But on that day you were male or female. Anything else is utter madness.
Everyone knows the CMS is a farce, replacing the CSA. Don't see a huge powerful movement for reform there. But then the people involved are only women, and why should they need protecting from men who refuse to financially maintain their own children? Lots of men don't engage in that process, possibly more than 44%. Where's the paper asking how the system could be improved so that more men are better able to support their children?