I vote we resurrect the term "legal fiction"

[MsTiggywinkletoyou]

As in, a new birth certificate that states the sex that an adult wishes to live their life as. Saying that Michael is now Michelle is a legal fiction; it doesn't change the underlying biology, and everyone, including M, should realise this. It shouldn't let M think that M is now a woman in the sense that 99.9% of us are women, which is what TRAs imply. Some people have chanted "Trans women are women" so often that they seem to believe that trans women are on the verge of menstruating and bearing babies, which is loonytunes, and IMO leads some mentally unstable or intellectually wobbly people into dark places. The phrase "legal fiction" provides sunshine.

I see a legal fiction as a polite strategy to let individuals get on with their own thing. It helps society run smoothly. Adoption is the classic legal fiction. A more peculiar one is MPs resigning by "taking the Chiltern Hundreds": Wikipedia says legal fictions are a very English thing (although it also gives Jewish and Hindu examples).

A legal fiction is a way of suspending disbelief. You don't have to really ultimately believe something in every sense, if it is convenient to act as if you do believe it. I want a baby and enter into an agreement with Sarah Surrogate. She gives birth to baby Jane. Jane is legally Jane Tiggywinkle, and I have all rights and responsibilities of a parent. However, I am sane, and do not believe I need postnatal check-ups of my reproductive organs (though come to think of it I might appreciate support to head off postnatal depression). Sarah Surrogate is also sane, knows full well that she is not the mother, but avails herself of relevant services. In later life, if health providers ask if I am a mother, I will clarify their question - yes I have a child, no I have never been pregnant. Motherhood in this case is a legal fiction (and much more, of course) but not a biological state.

I don't see "fiction" as a disparaging word. The novelist's craft is not lies, but getting at a deeper human truth. A metaphor is true when it is useful, and not otherwise. So Michelle is a woman, as a legal fiction. I don't see that as a negative thing, though I am sure TRAs will despise it, and it may hurt the feelings of some non-activist trans people.

And "legal" of course refers to how wider society is required to treat the person. It acknowledges that they should be treated as belonging to a certain category, but it opens the door for consideration that that category is not always the correct one. It allows room for lawyers (local authorities, government departments, committees doling out women's prizes, etc.) to discuss exceptions.

Can we not resurrect this language, as one of respectful recognition of difference?

There is 'legal fiction' and there is 'fiction'.

The legal fiction is only applicable if you have a Gender Recognition Certificate. It is a document that requires officials, employers and service providers to treat you "as though" you were a woman.

And then there is the fiction: that all transwomen ARE women.

The state believes the fiction and expects everyone else to go along with it.

If you don't, you will be penalised and punished by eg
-the withdrawal of funding for your organisation/project
-investigated by the police.

Somewhere along the line 'fiction' has taken priority over 'legal fiction'.

I saw someone on the Facebook thread trying to figure out why, if the reason TW needed to use women's facilities was because they shared in fear of male violence, a third space wasn't the obvious solution.

Like 'legal fiction', it's missing the point. And it's easy to miss, because it's been shyly hidden behind a whole lot of obfustication for years.

The bottom line is, trans acceptance means you will believe I am a woman if I identify one, and that means a woman no different in any way to biological women, so no boundaries of any kind being retained.

That is the goal. Total validation. That is what 'acceptance without exception' means. That is why women's rights are transphobic - because it implies that there is such a thing as women that are different to transwomen. That's why third spaces are transphobic, because it implies segregation of TW from women. This is why Mordaunt is weaselling about 'protecting sex based spaces' and sounding totally incoherent, because Mordaunt means 'of the sex you want to identify as'. This is why the words sex and gender have been intentionally conflated.

This is what needs making very clear to the general public, who know perfectly well what a woman is, what female means, and whether they want their mum on a women's ward next to someone with a history of multiple sex offences and a GRC.

It also needs making very clear that TW are busy re defining the word 'woman' to remove all connotations to an actual biological class, such as some women have penises, some men get pregnant, men can be mothers on birth certificates, you're menstruators, you're cervix havers, TW have periods too, you may NOT talk about your vagina or any issues specific to having been born female because it excludes TW and implies that women is an actual biological thing instead of something you can join the club of.

Mordaunt was asked: what do we call the group of half the human race who have specific biology in common?

Mordaunt declined to answer. Because to answer would have either told women they'd been the victims of a hostile take over, or told TW there were boundaries around the reality of their desire.

And Mordaunt knows the answer 'a woman is anyone who defines as one' is a lie in plain sight. You can only identify as something that you know exists and which you know the features that create it. We all know what a woman is. We're just supposed to lie and pretend to be 'kind'.

The iniquity, the sheer utter evil of this, makes me so angry. Eradicate women, obliviate them, their needs, their rights, the things specific to being born with the same fucking biology - because a small group of men with very mixed motives, a number of which are anything but harmless, are more important. And your elective representatives do not have a problem with this.

Brilliant posts Knicknackpaddyflak If only we could get that message out to the general public more effectively.

'Legal fiction' is what got us into this mess in the first place.

What's needed is legal recognition of the right to break gender stereotypes. So a man cannot be discriminated against for wearing a dress, for example.

So a man cannot be discriminated against for wearing a dress, for example.

well said @jellys

We would celebrate the transwomen who 'expanded the bandwith' of what it meant to be a man. We would want the police to prosecute the people who could not accept the fact that they are men and who abused them. We would want the prison service and NHS to be sensitive to their needs - as men.

We want to have policies based on Truth not fiction

Men are already protected from that sort of discrimination under the EA2010 You already can't discriminate between people of the same sex (sex being a protected characteristic) on the basis of dress sense or their religious/political belief.
There are no rights that gender non confirming or trans people do not already have.

(What they want is to destroy women's rights while they keep their own)

Is there no role for legal fictions anywhere in public life? With regard to non-trans things, the legal fiction of fatherhood (the man married to the mother) has crumbled under scientific progress (DNA testing). Many people merrily doing spit-in-a-tube ancestry testing are finding out more than they wanted to.

I get the impression that some posters here would like the abolition of any version of the Gender Recognition Act. Biological truth must prevail. So would that include old-school (and elderly) transsexuals like Jan Morris being re-assigned male?

Or is the current gate-keeping by medical professionals about right? People have to demonstrate their transness to a sufficient standard to convince a panel of experts whom they never meet, and then they get their certificate and are covered by the legal fiction of being the sex they say they are. That law was intended to cover about 5000 people, I think.

Can we (society) cope with a tiny amount of legal fiction (less than one in ten thousand adults in Britain), or is all legal fiction always pernicious? Or should we have more legal fiction, with it being less 100% recognition (or less 99%, since there are already exceptions)? "Yes, we recognise you as a woman for many purposes, but not for sports or hospitals or prisons"?

I'm not sure what I think, but MumsNet is helping me gradually clarify my thoughts.

Men are already protected from that sort of discrimination under the EA2010

This is true.

However, the law took a wrong turn when it has come it came to define transphobia as being an offence against wrong think, committed by people who did not accept the fiction.

Its true meaning ought to be restored - hatred towards men who present themselves as women, and vice versa.

When legal fiction has the capacity to cause harm then, yes, there is no place for it.

Definitely biological fact must prevail. Women are discriminated against because of their biology, not because of how they feel about themselves.

The gate-keeping by medical professionals is being eroded by the legal fiction. The fictitious claims that people can change sex and that biological sex is irrelevant are becoming more important than the wellbeing of any and all people.

Were the GRA to be repealed, the only humane thing to do would be to allow those already holding a legal fiction certificate to continue in their new identities. Certainly, as long as ideology and legal fiction are given more credence than science and wellbeing, no more should be granted.