Transgender Derry woman settles pension case

[EweSurname]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-48914506

Frances did not start her transition until she turned 60.

"I had more than enough contributions to claim my state pension as a woman and I did not see why I could not claim it at the same age as every other woman," she said,

She approached the Human Rights Commission to help fight her case.

"As transgender individuals we are not looking for additional rights or anything more favourable than anybody else in society," she said.

"However it is very, very important that those rights that we do have are enforced. For me it is not enough to be tolerated.

"I want to be accepted and respected in the same way as you would expect."

Ok it's 'settled' but which way? Maybe I'm being thick but I can't see which way it went.

They reimbursed the pension entitlement from the date of transition rather than the date of obtaining a GRC.

A big fuck you to WASPI women.

She got her pension payments backdated to age 63 rather than the date of her Gender Recognition Certificate - so 9 months more pension payments.

Fucking hell. Really? Ridiculous!

Why is pension start date dictated by sex? That's ridiculous.

What about all the WASPI women who still don't have the pensions they should have had, and have been denied what they've paid in?

Seems to me it would be far more sensible to address that glaring inequality than a one off self indulgent case no?

Oh wait, women don't matter.

Amazing how male women get listened to and female women don't, isn't it.

There's a related issue for pensions in general that I haven't seen anything about yet though (apologies if it's been discussed and I've missed it).

When you are buying a pension (income for life) with your pension fund, the rate you receive depends on whether you are male or female.

Males receive a higher rate as they have a lower life expectancy. So will pension companies assess a FtM at male rates or at female rates, and vice versa?

If someone chooses to transition MtF, and then purchases a pension, will they take all the financial consequences of such a change including a lower pension rate?

If TWAW then shouldn't they get the female annuity rate when calculating the pension their fund can buy?

All being equal one would assume there would be the same number of FtM and MtF so this would cancel out the cost to the pension companies. But what if it doesn't? If this turns out to be a big cost to the companies I wonder will they just suck it up, or, as pensions are very big business, will they challenge it in some way? It would be interesting to see how this turns out...

Men's feels over women's lives. Wonderful

Why is pension start date dictated by sex? That's ridiculous. Yes! And when a single male 'woman' can have his voice heard almost immediately and millions of female women cannot you have to wonder just what the fuck is going on!

But maybe you don't know that WASPI is Women Against State Pension Inequality and that is what is being WTF'd. I didn't know the acronym until a little while ago - thanks to MN

Males receive a higher rate as they have a lower life expectancy

You mean men getter a better pension than us, just because . Well I never knew that

Gosh that's really pissed me off! I recommended a book by Marilyn Frye called Counting for Nothing on another thread, about how capitalist economies depend on women's low paid and unpaid labour , that they extract women's labour to benefit men. This would be a good example of that

This is a slap in the face for WASPI women.
Men receive a higher rate of pension as they have a lower life expectancy, but women can no longer get cheaper car insurance even though we are a better risk as a group. Go figure.

Wasn’t the initial reason for the age disparity some guff about ensuring they would be at home to look after their slightly older, newly retired husbands?
Can’t expect a man to make his own lunch, can we?

Sucks for the WASPI women who got the the changes sprung on them without adequate time to prepare, especially as women are more likely to have caring responsibilities (for elderly parents/grandchildren) that make working full time difficult.

This ruling is just a big fuck you to 60something women.

As a WASPI woman myself, I read that article fully aware I gave no fucks at all about Frances' missing pension. I've been diddled out of around £50,000 by the age changes.

I wonder if WASPI was at all involved in this case? NI, so maybe no reach there.

EU regulations changed rates for lifecover and car insurance - took out difference for sex - but didn't extend to pension annuity rates. So took away advantages for bering female for car and lifecove

I’m not sure that’s right littlewoollypervert - I think annuities purchased from insurers haven’t been based on sex for some years due to EU Rules? Occupational schemes are different, but many of those don’t use sex-based factors anyway.

So, say for example, I transition at around about retirement age would I get a better pension?

JoyceJeffries M2F, as in this case, clearly gained an advantage as it seems they could be treated as females and should have had the same state pension age as women. If you are a woman, so would be F2M, under the old unequal age system, you'd wait longer. Instead of claiming at 60 for a woman, as in the old days, you'd have to wait till 65 for a man - who'd do that? The state pension age has now equalised anyway. So I'd stay as you are if I were you.

That’s disappointing as it seems very easy indeed to transition. Not that anyone would ever use it to their advantage.

Sorry I'm just appalled that women get a lower pension just because.

I'm literally fuming over patriarchy today

So if my retirement age is now the same as a mans, and a man gets higher annuity rates, can I identify as a man to benefit from the same higher rates?

If I got a GRC, could the annuity company legally give me a lower rate as I’m of female sex (than a person of male sex)?

Vethings no idea! Ask a pension advisor. I doubt much of this will ever work to women's advantage.

@slipperylizard if you are purchasing an annuity now (Ireland) there's still a sex based difference (I work in the industry). Not sure about the UK interpretation of the EU directive though.

Whether the pension companies here will allow self ID to apply when purchasing an annuity remains to be seen...

(Apologies for my last post, I cut off half of it)

I think the "logic" behind lower annuity rates for women was to equalise the total payout from similar funds. E.g. €100,000 fund, rate f=4%, rate m=5%, payout for f over 25 yrs is €100k. Payout for m over say 20 yrs is €100k.

But in reality of course women's pension funds are a fraction of men's due to maternity leave, career breaks to raise families, low paid work, non pensionable employment, SAHM etc. So the cost "equalisation" for pension providers is a minimal saving on female pensions in reality, but of course an out of proportion effect on individual women.