How to make policy: hide it in other policy. Layla moran and the lib dems at conference

[Anlaf]

lib dem conference voting this morning on equal marriage - Layla Moran proposing motion on equal marriage, particularly in NI and movingly mentioning testimony of the journalist Lyra Mckee, killed this year. Also to cover strengthening rights of cohabiting couples and for anyone awake enough to notice:

Remove the spousal veto
Obstacles still exist preventing equal marriage in England and Wales, including the spousal veto which allows the married spouse of a trans person to veto their spouse's full legal gender recognition and hands a person's ability to self-identify to their partner, who may not have their best intentions at heart.

www.libdems.org.uk/f9-equal-marriage

I have no doubt the spousal veto (which I would rather describe as the partner of a person transitioning being able request an end to the marriage, rather than become married to someone of the same (or in a gay couple, opposite) legal sex) is worthy of political debate.

Surely worth more attention than hiding it in a bullet point towards the bottom of a motion on another topic?

Luckily the liberals will never get in.

Shame that this nonsense means I can't possibly vote for them.but I do think they are right about No Brexit.

Northern Ireland is focussed on, they have different laws to rest of UK. Eg abortion illegal. Why don't these 'progressives' focus on that. Rather than using their laws to misrepresent position in rest of UK.

New here

I can't see the problem with removing the spousal veto, given that at the point it is being invoked one party is living as a different gender, and the relationship between the two parties is presumably over. The spousal veto has nothing to do with the realities of the situation - things like children, dividing up belongings, putting the house on the market, having friends come to terms with the transition - none of that is affected. The spousal veto is only to do with the legal concepts which need sorting out - the legal concept of the marriage, and the legal concept of the trans person's gender.

The current situation is that if the spousal veto is used, rather than ending the marriage, it prevents the trans person being issued with the GRC. The trans person and their spouse are still legally married despite the marriage in all likelihood having broken down, and the trans person does not have their preferred gender legally recognised. They have the interim certificate which can be used to initiate divorce proceedings, but they may then need to wait a long time for the divorce to be finalised before they can legally change gender.

If the spousal veto were removed, then regardless of if divorce proceedings had been initiated or how far through they were the trans person could be issued with their GRC. The couple can then divorce or remain married as they please and the trans person has their preferred gender legally recognised.

I agree that there is a problem that some people will find themselves legally married to a person of a different gender to the gender they were upon marriage, and that this will impact on their senses of identity and history, as their view of these will be at odds with their legal status. Either way it is impossible to avoid someone’s feelings being hurt and their sense of identity being disrupted: either the trans person faces being legally registered as a gender they do not identify with, or the spouse faces being legally registered as a sexuality they do not identify with. Whichever prevails, someone is legally something they consider themselves not to be. If the spousal veto remains, then the person who has potentially transitioned chemically, physically and socially (or a mixture of these) is left without the legal protections intended to be granted to them under the Equality Act 2010. If the spousal veto is removed, then the spouse is left with the same legal protections as before given that gay marriage and straight marriage have equal legal standing. It therefore seems to make logical sense to remove the spousal veto as this causes the least harm in terms of legal protections.

Without the veto, can someone obtain a grc without the spouse's knowledge?

We know it is possible to obtain a grc without surgery or medication, so would a partner even know a transition has taken place?

If the spousal veto is removed, then the spouse is left with the same legal protections as before given that gay marriage and straight marriage have equal legal standing. It therefore seems to make logical sense to remove the spousal veto as this causes the least harm in terms of legal protections.

And yet, the mental health and well being of the spouse who has been lied to in her (and let's face it, it's always a her, I have never heard of a trans widower) marriage counts for nothing; persuaded into a legal contract and emotional investment with someone who will latterly claim they were never who they had claimed to be, from birth no less; falsely persuaded into bearing children with someone who will then try to usurp her position as mother; being forced to lie to her children to try to keep some semblance of family harmony and protect them from emotional harm and social ridicule; possibly face accusations of rape because she unwittingly had consensual sex with what she thought was her husband (cf Rhys "Rachel' McKinnon); be emotionally coerced, and under threat of financial ruin of herself and her children, forced into a "lesbian" pact where she has to fulfil all of his girly fantasies.

Yes, I am sure all trans widows are laughing hollowly at the Lib Dems and their "but you still have all your legal rights" bullshit. Funny how you only care about men's feelings. We see you. You really don't know how many women's votes you have lost, do you?

Kaitlyn
New here

twelvecolourfulbirds
persuaded into a legal contract and emotional investment with someone who will latterly claim they were never who they had claimed to be, from birth no less; falsely persuaded into bearing children with someone who will then try to usurp her position as mother;

Occurred to me when reading your post, twelve, that quite apart from a divorce, those would be grounds for annulment for Catholic marriages.

It therefore seems to make logical sense to remove the spousal veto as this causes the least harm in terms of legal protections.

Translation - As this causes harm predominantly to the person who we just don't think is very important.

Hi KaitlynFairchild, thanks for this. A couple of questions/comments on how you see this:

if the spousal veto is used, rather than ending the marriage, it prevents the trans person being issued with the GRC
A full GRC yes, but an interim GRC is issued (and as you say can be used to end the marriage). Presumably this would not change the birth certificate sex of the trans person until the marriage (or civil partnership) is ended?

the person who has potentially transitioned chemically, physically and socially (or a mixture of these) is left without the legal protections intended to be granted to them under the Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act grants protections to people with protected characteristic of gender reassignment - including people who are intending to under gender reassignment. This requires no GRC, nor any transition. Can you say more about other protections that the EA2010 gives?

they may then need to wait a long time for the divorce to be finalised before they can legally change gender.
i'd understood the interim GRC could be used to annull the marriage if desired. Presumably this is relatively quicker than a divorce? Source here and here

Btw i'm assuming you're in LD politics- what is the equalities impact of this policy? I would assume it would mostly affect women married to men who transition, given the low (nil?) rate of heterosexual women transitioning in midlife, and your post concentrating on marriage and not civil partnerships.

It's cutting off the tail an inch at a time, isn't it? Every protection that has been put in place for women is being gradually taken away, but each step is just a teenshy weenshy thing that really doesn't matter and is completely logical and causes the least harm to everyone and why would anyone be so unreasonable as to object and this will never happen and on and on and on.

I agree Juells . The LibDems are in bulging in frog boiling. The water is starting to feel hot to me.

So if something is unsatisfactory/harmful for both a (transitioning) man and his wife, it is the wife who should lose out? Sounds like “be kind” all over again.

The answer is no.

My understanding was that if you lived in NI and your spouse wished to transition, this automatically ended your marriage. You had no choice in this. You would be divorced even if you both wanted to remain married. And I thought that was what this bill was meant to amend - so that doesn't have to happen if couples don't want it to.

uk government summary is upthread - and yes, it's different in Northern Ireland:
If your marriage or civil partnership is registered in Northern Ireland you can only get an interim [gender recognition] certificate. You must end your marriage or civil partnership before you can apply for a full certificate. You can use the interim certificate as grounds to end your marriage or civil partnership.

I would guess this is (partly) because NI doesn't allow marriage between same sex couples. It doesn't automatically end your marriage if they want to transition, but you would need to both end your marriage before they were able to receive a full gender recognition certificate.

Worth saying that this Lib dem policy on spousal veto is aimed at England and wales:
Obstacles still exist preventing equal marriage in England and Wales, including the spousal veto which allows the married spouse of a trans person to veto their spouse's full legal gender recognition and hands a person's ability to self-identify to their partner, who may not have their best intentions at heart.

Conference calls for:

The UK government to extend existing legislation in England and Wales to include equal marriage, removing the discriminatory spousal veto.

Without the veto, can someone obtain a grc without the spouse's knowledge?

Really good question - unless this is specifically added to the form filling for the GRC, I guess yes?

By the way "veto" is used by campaigners - the gov't calls it "spousal consent". Here is a Women and Equalities summary:

32.Under the current law, applicants for a GRC are required to prove that they:
are not married (unless their spouse has given consent to changing the marriage from different-sex to same-sex or vice versa, as appropriate);
are not in a civil partnership;

So I guess if you remove the consent step....

and hands a person's ability to self-identify to their partner, who may not have their best intentions at heart.

Every time I read that my blood pressure rises. Your husband should be able to decide he's in a lesbian relationship with you, and the only reason you might object is from spite.

(Plus which the saying is 'their best interests', not 'their best intentions', which is meaningless)

It can't just be me that has thought of this, so maybe I'm wrong, but if the spousal veto leads to the equivalent of the marriage being annulled rather than a divorce, thus removing the transitioning party's financial obligation to the wife, post divorce, then they're shooting themselves in the foot by forcing the wife to divorce instead?

hands a person's ability to self-identify to their partner

Also, what does this mean?

Is this predicting self id of legal sex will be brought in, and so then the only process would be for the trans person to fill in the self id form, without need for spouse to be on board?

(By the way all this shows is that this policy needs to be debated - and impacts understood for all parties)

So according to this annulment is very quick - literally weeks. www.gov.uk/how-to-annul-marriage

But I don't know enough about the finances TinselAngel and whether you'd deal with the financials using a different legal approach to divorce

It's a key issue though, and is why I'm ambivalent about the spousal veto. Nobody seems to know the answer to it. Getting rid of it could actually improve the financial position of the wife.

As I say, I suspect the veto has possibly never been used.

It's a matter of principle for the TRA's. When I've tried to google it to find more out, you get pages of articles by them saying how awful it is. Disproportionate for something never used.

(I'm repeating myself, but had the odd experience earlier of being invited onto the thread, then my comment ignored which seems about rude).

Agree it's not clear what the real life impact of this would be as it stands, aside from married partners being able to change legal (birth cert) sex without informing their spouse. And perhaps the legal sex change not being able to be used as grounds for divorce?

What would certainly have a much bigger impact is if - if! - self ID was brought in, as the lib dem policy says.

I'm starting to feel that both sides are virtue signalling on this without any actual understanding of its application in real life.

What do you think would work, TinselAngel? To my mind, the person who is having their circumstances changed (the spouse) should be the one whose wellbeing is taken into account, rather than the person who is choosing to change the contract entered into.

I think it's a bit of a non issue. I agree with the sentiment you're expressing, but when I was in that position I filed for divorce on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour.

That was the true situation, and there was no ambiguity about his financial obligations.

As said earlier in the thread, the veto had to be included in the GRC legislation as same sex marriage was not legal at the time. That's now not the case.

I suppose I feel a bit ambivalent about it because there seems to be so much pressure on (in particular) wives, with so many TV programmes showing a desperately smiling supportive wife, with societal pressure to pretend that everything is all hunky dory. If the marriage is automatically dissolved unless otherwise stated by both parties, at least it removes the pressure to apply for divorce, and be the bad un-supportive partner.