“Person who gave birth” turns out to be mother.

[aliasundercover]

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/25/transgender-man-loses-court-battle-to-be-registered-as-father-freddy-mcconnell

It’s just not fair he says.

I don't understand why they want to get rid of the category of sex.

Maybe because the inconvenient existence of physically verifiable facts effectively invalidates the whole of her Pomo-addled 'research'?

*@NotBadConsidering * Still can’t get my head around why the GRC panel aren’t asking questions. Given the fact they probably can’t and can't challenge someone, a GRC isn’t worth the paper it’s written on

It is possible to have the certificate rescinded for fraud but it requires the case to be taken to court by the Secretary of state (see s8(5) here) www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/8 so it's not the GRC panel themselves who ask questions and presumably the Secretary of STate is not going to be getting involved in most cases. The judge in this case asked the government lawyers whether there was going to be a fraud challenge here and they decided not to. Presumably (a) they don't want to waste the time and energy for the bad publicity that would inevitably come from being seen to persecute a Guardian journalist whose situation has ben on TV; and (b) it would require very uncomfortable questions about what 'living as a man/woman' means and so show the GRA to be on built on a test that lacks any substance.

So it's pretty difficult to imagine any scenario in which a GRC would be challenged.

happy sorry but that’s naive. This ruling by the High Court will absolutely not lead to the GRA being repealed. The judge called for clarification in the law but you’re reading things into it if you think he meant that the GRA should be repealed. I am not just speculating as I have listened to presentations of what people like Sally Hines want and they now have the right moment to push for that. They have been given millions of PUBLIC money for this.

3mks you are wrong - gay men have the choice to have their own biological children through a co-parenting arrangement with single women or lesbian couples. These options are not open to Freddie.

If Freddie had a biological child through surrogacy he would have to find a willing surrogate, take IVF hormones, have his eggs extracted, get them implanted in the surrogate and likely pay thousands of pounds. It's hardly a simple option!

I can see why he ended up going down the route he did.

Already if you read the stuff that local governments, universities, and other supposedly respectable bodies tweet, they are already playing fast and loose with the law by pretending that gender has replaced sex under the Equality Act. There is a widespread push to pretend that the law is already what they want it to be- no reference to sex, just gender identity.

I personally would also much rather that Freddie have birth rather than employing another woman to give birth for him. There are so many threads on here about the risks and dangers of surrogacy yet people are now saying that this person should just ‘find a surrogate’ rather than use his own healthy body.

I personally would also much rather that Freddie have birth rather than employing another woman to give birth for him.

ITA.

The thing that was wrong with Freddie's route - 'wrong' as in dishonest and perhaps illegal - was getting a GRC, claiming to thenceforth live as a man. And the other thing wrong with the route was trying to claim anonymity after making a non-anonymous film - WTF was Freddie thinking?

I hope that cool minds will see that Freddie has effectively driven a coach and horses through the legal fiction of the GRA. It is not fit for purpose; it should be abolished and alternative means of securing the rights of transsexuals which neither ignore physical reality nor impact the rights of people with others protected characteristics.

Who is saying that Freddie should 'find a surrogate' Pota? I'm certainly not!

I think Freddie shouldn't have said they wanted to be a man if they wanted to have a child. Or Freddie's partner could bear a child given that Freddie appears to favour relationships with people born female. Someone like Tigger Blaize or some other gender non-conforming person who also has their female reproductive organs but hasn't just signed a legal document to say that they intend to live the rest of their life as a man.

AMAM and 3mks both said that Freddy could have frozen eggs and used a surrogate.

Pota Do you think that now there is case law that someone who is male in the eyes of the law, is also registered as Mother, certain people will be pushing for biological men to be registered as Mothers on birth certificates?

I don't see how, the case law seems clear that the person who gave birth is the mother.

errol yes I agree with you the person who gave birth is the Mother, but that Mother is also legally Male which is a first.....

Happy I am sure there will be a push for that. I think the thing that holds it back is that a mother must be the person who gestated the child. So for instance a lesbian couple cannot both be registered as mothers. One can be the second parent but there can only be one mother. Under the current law, a biological male wouldn’t be able to claim he was the mother. But i do wonder for instance if surrogacy law is changed so that the woman who gives birth is no longer the mother (as is the case now) whether a transwoman will try to argue that they should be listed as the mother.

Also, if the desire to change the law is pushed through as I am pretty sure it will (as some of them have promised their funders that is exactly what they will do) then it becomes a free for all. I think one of the projects, the legal gender one, is more about neutrality, so no reference to sex on birth cert for baby or parents. OTOH, Sally Hines seems more in favour of affirming people’s ‘inner identity’, meaning we could have male mothers and female fathers. Both examples would be bad but I would prefer the neutral one as at least it doesn’t distort reality to the same extent as the gender identity approach.

WTF should the parents 'gender identity' be of any relevance on the child's birth certificate?

I kinda think parenthood is a good time to quit me-me-me-me.

Lol, well apparently they’re running into a few problems gathering data and a lot of it is our fault it seems:

futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/2019/09/20/engendering-criticism-reflection-on-feedback-to-our-attitudes-to-gender-survey/#more-1008

Really pleased to see several responses young women under 40 represented in the GC side. I fall into this category and am sick of being told that only old bitter women who grew up in a different time think like I do. The amount of ageism in this movement and the way it’s actively encouraged is pretty sickening. Do these people think they will never get old themselves or something?

Has anyone posted this long and indulgent article yet?

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/mother-no-longer-means-woman-judge-rules

Forgive me if it’s a repetition. I can’t bear to read another entire thread about Me-Me-Me-Freddy.

that Mother is also legally Male which is a first.....

The mother has been granted a legal fiction that they are male. I think the distinction is important, although it illustrates the whole problem with legal fictions.

Thanks DuMonde. There’s a lot of inaccuracies about how this judgment is so disastrous. Most of it is untrue, such as the idea that this is the first time the law has said the mother is the person who gives birth. It’s said that forever, ever since egg donation has been possible. It also says that it will ruin proposals for surrogacy laws which again doesn’t really follow. The legal team says they will go to the Supreme Court with it and the judge in this case says himself that the ruling breaches fundamental human rights but that his hands were tied. If it goes to Strasbourg there is already precedent from other countries of children not having a legal mother. Either way it’s only the beginning of a longer process and any celebration of it is premature.

Yes, it’s a very twisted interpretation, isn’t it?

No surprise from Patrick Strudwick though, he writes loads of Buzzfeed UK’s trans propaganda, including that god awful recent one about rampant transphobia at the Guardian and beatification of Ruth Hunt.

www.buzzfeednews.com/author/patrickstrudwick

It may have been unlawful for McConnell to be given fertility treatment designed for women — therefore trans people may no longer be able to access it.

That's something I wondered about, should the HFEA be getting involved for the clinic helping a legal man to conceive?

That Buzzfeed article is making so many statements of fact that are wrong and will scare and worry a lot of trans people absolutely needlessly. Is this journalism in the post-facts era? Do Buzzfeed not employ a company lawyer to check over the articles like every other media company does?
Who do we complain to?
I am really surprised that Buzzfeed who position themselves as being supportive of trans people (..quite rightly, although everybody in society already has the same legal protections to both have our kids and present ourselves however we want to..) could be so irresponsible in what they assert in this scaremongering piece.
The reader comes away with the impression that a GRC is now going to be cancelled the moment you have kids or something. Ridiculous.

I kinda think parenthood is a good time to quit me-me-me-me.

This. A bazillion times this.

Just wondering how it would work if trans men in future could be registered as fathers rather than mothers when they give birth. I lost my job because I was pregnant. Luckily because only women get pregnant this comes under sex discrimination so I had a legal case. If men can get pregnant in the eyes of the law will mothers no longer be protected under sex discrimination?

@Spindrift1981 bloody hell never thought of that.

Spindrift - yes, they would in any event, because pregnancy / maternity is a separate protected characteristic in the Equality Act.