What is the need for a GRC?

[HeyDuggeesCakeBadge]

Just reading the Scottish GRA thread and I was really interested in the comments about what the necessity for a GRC is?

Is there any need for this any more? My understanding is that this was provided as a backdoor for same sex marriage but as this is now legal what is the point of it? Should someone be able to change their official record of birth?

So you can live as the opposite sex, get married, claim your pension early (or late - where was the court case for that one ), change your passport, change your driving license...….swim in the Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond...……

Not sure

So you can change driving licence and passport without a GRC so I really don't understand why this is even needed anymore? I totally am Onboard with legislation for people to live in peace and with dignity and not suffer any discrimination for their gender identity but I honestly don't understand why everyone still wants and needs a GRC to do this?

Now there is sane sex marriage and (supposedly) equality legislation, I am not sure what purpose it serves, either.

It just lets people change their birth certificate doesn't it? I think since at this point we basically have self id that's all they need it for.

Well yes that's my understanding - do people really need to do this? Should they be able to do this? I don't know the answer by the way

I was hoping someone would come and tell me why it was so important.

I never understood the thing about GRC being proposed so they wouldn’t need to legalise gay marriage. What was that all about? One partner would identify as the opposite sex? I don’t get it.

Yes, so a trans woman who would want to potentially marry a man and they were unable to do so. The same for trans men.

Basically yes. In the 90s there was a court case brought by a TW who wanted to marry their partner but couldn't. The judge ruled it was inhumane not to allow it and thus the GRA was born. It didn't actually come into play until years later, and went well beyond the judges original ruling (which was made on the basis of the trans person having fully medically transitioned). Those who opposed it did so mostly on the grounds that it allowed same sex marriage. One person raised concerns about what it would mean for women, but was waved aside.

That's how deep homophobia and misogyny run in this country. We'd rather pretend humans can change sex and eradicate the rights of women than let people love who they choose and dress as they please.

The annoying thing about all of this noise is that now everyone knows about it they all want one.

I am constantly raising this issue-what purpose does a GRC serve? Why is it necessary? Now that same sex marriage is legal, the ONLY purpose for a GRC is to allow a man entry to womens sex segregated spaces (& boast about it on twitter, claiming I'm LEGALLY a woman.)

I don't see how government can continue to issue them, they create a legal fiction which is partly why we are in this mess.

I've read about it even ventured to mermaids and stonewall to see what they said and they talked about retirement age, inheritance (although apparently if they try and take inheritance off a trans woman if the will says first born son they can still argue against it), marriage - all of which are generally not even an issue anymore. So why are we spending money debating this?

I agree to some respects about non binary wanting to be included (although I don't necessarily totally understand it as I would see myself as non binary) but GRC - nope I don't see why we would even need to do this anymore?

As far as I know, in terms of discrimination, it's about legal sex.

Without a GRC, a transwoman's comparator would be a male, because they are still legally male.

With a GRC, the comparator would be a female.

The EHRC guidance only clarified this recently. Or is it the EHRC? I get them confused.

Either way, it's been clarified.

*ECHR even

So it is basically about access to womens spaces then?

This is why I can't support GRCs any more.

Without a GRC, a transwoman's comparator would be a male, because they are still legally male.

With a GRC, the comparator would be a female.

So under self-ID for a GRC, the protected characteristic of sex disappears from the Equality Act. There is no protection for women if any man can legally become a woman just by declaring he is one.

Exactly. If legislators have decided that sex needed to be a protected characteristic, but then decided that anyone can be any sex, what happened to their reasons in the first place?

Idiocy.

And no one, ever answers the questions.

The GRC is a way for trans people to legally and officially deny reality, and pretend they have actually changed sex. This rubber stamp on maintaining a delusion surely cannot be good for trans people's mental health. I've heard some old school transsexuals say that when they had surgery, they had to sign a disclaimer to say they realised that this did not mean they had changed sex. As Jen Smith (Canadian transsexual) maintains... it is vital for transsexuals to hang on to their sanity, and this means not denying reality, or having others playing along and colluding in and confirming their delusions that they are the opposite sex

So it is possibly kinder to trans people, not to have a GRC? If its better for their mental health, I wonder if any Dr has done any research into this.

Because people think that no one would pretend to be a woman unless they really wanted to be one for genuine dysphoric reasons ie men who are ‘no threat’ to women. Same thought processes behind people who are surprised whenever priests and scout leaders are outed as paedophiles ie cant imagine that paedophiles would seek out these positions on purpose.

It's crazy isn't it Datun, why on earth are we legislating to enable sex discrimination to be meaningless? Why are women supporting this? It's just madness.

I understand that transition can ease dysphoria but on the podcast with the detransistioner (Ben?) that Glinner posted the other day, she said that binding and denying reality made it worse and when she started to embrace the fact she was female her dysphoria eased. Why is this not being researched?

There is no protection for women if any man can legally become a woman just by declaring he is one.

Apart from the single sex exemptions if they were actually used properly.

yes, given that most of the big voices in this don't seem to have a GRC, I'm kind of about why it's so important for anyone to be able to get one as quickly and easily as possible

it would be great to know why a GRC is so important wouldn't it?

I honestly think that in the olden days, it was seen as the best treatment path for someone with gender dysphoria, and also as the logical work around before same sex marriage was legal. I wonder if anyone in government knows how many of the GRCs currently allocated, were to allow ‘same sex’ marriage, and how many for a single person. In the current climate it would seem that some criminals are abusing the system to be allowed to serve time in womens prisons....is anyone actually collecting data on this?

Probably not happy, it seems that the cry of transpbobia is for any person questioning the dogma.

I think a GRC is also a signal to society that you are serious about living in your chosen gender. You need to live full time for 2 years currently to get one. In terms of allowing someone access to female only space it is far safer to allow someone who has gone through this process than allowing self ID.