Ruth Hunt uses maiden speech to make wildly misleading claims about the spousal veto

[miri1985]

Penis news is the only place reporting on this so as not to give them extra clicks, heres an archive link to the article about it <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/save/www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/05/ruth-hunt-baroness-marriage-reforms-spousal-veto-house-of-lords/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/save/www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/05/ruth-hunt-baroness-marriage-reforms-spousal-veto-house-of-lords/

The baroness said: “As a practising Christian, I understand how important it is to some people that marriage for same-sex couples is different from marriage to opposite-sex couples.

“I’m not sure if it remains necessary, however, to make the legal distinction between the two. The so called ‘quadruple lock’ that prevents the Church of England marrying same-sex couples could remain in place without the need to maintain two separate legal institutions.”

Explaining the “unintended consequence” for transgender people of retaining different models of marriage, she added: “When a couple is married and one person in that marriage transitions, their partner must consent to the change to change their marriage from an opposite-sex one to a same-sex one, or vice versa. If the partner refuses, the spouse cannot receive a gender recognition certificate.

“[A person] currently has the power to stop his spouse transitioning. This doesn’t seem fair or right. And his right to veto is because marriage for same-sex couples is a different institution to marriage for opposite-sex couples.

“Making divorce easier is common sense. It helps couples navigate what is often a distressing time more easily. I would ask government though, that we explore opportunities to simplify things further marriages marriage in the eyes of the law, and as a nation, we are proud that we extended it to same-sex couples.

“Anything we can do to help trans people and their families navigate the changes that are happening in their lives, that seems sensible too.”

Would love one of the fact check sites to do a report on this but I doubt it would be seen as important enough. Anyone else notice the use of "his spouse" instead of their wonder if that was intentional.

Layla Moran MP said: “You shouldn’t be defined by anyone else other than you

Other than your transitioning husband's right to define you as a lesbian, obvs

Anecdotally, I've heard older lesbians say that they know women their age who have decided to transition but I've no stats on it so I don't know how often it happens or whether many of them are married.

Other than your transitioning husband's right to define you as a lesbian, obvs

Which is curious as it seemed important for Layla Moran MP to describe herself & be described as 'pansexual' rather than lesbian or bisexual.

Noone can change sex, so in fact there is no change in the nature of the marriage, it remains either single sex or same sex as it started. This is why the GRA had to include s legal ground for divorce in the first place, as otherwise 'transition' in itself could be labelled 'unreasonable behaviour' and that would never do.

I've started to call this "the pedantic feminist argument" as I encounter it reasonably frequently. Yes it is true that the marriage is not biologically same sex, but it becomes legally same sex. This is not what the wife signed up to and therefore is unfair.

When feminists make this argument I really wish they would think who they are benefitting by making it- it's not women.

Your point about "unreasonable behaviour" is not true. (See numerous threads passim).

The GRA doesn't provide grounds for divorce it provides grounds for annulment/ dissolution.

You can easily make the behaviour around transition grounds for an Unreasonable Behaviour petition
(I did), but this depends on:

1. The transitioner agreeing to divorce on these grounds.
2. You being part of a culture that allows divorce.

A lot of these misunderstandings could be cleared up by people reading the GRA, which is freely available and which anybody can do.

Fascinating if head scratching memo by HB. JB seems to be in a passive stand off there. She wont refer to herself having a 'wife' but HB won't refer to herself as a 'husband'. I guess maybe they use spouse or partner. But it's a rather revealing glimpse.

@OldCrone

Thanks - all about Helen. No mention of support for Joanna. The children are lucky to have such a strong Mother.

Thanks Tinsel - appreciated. I'll read more.

How the hell is it jelping tbe family?!?

If the wife or husband of some transitioning wishes to end the marriage prior to it changing beyond recognition then preventing them will do far more harm. This will impact on any children. The only person this benefits is the trans person. What a shocker their feelings are being put above the feelings and mental health of others!

Interesting how words like 'you' in declarations like these quite obviously exclude women.

Can I define myself as an adult human female?
Can I reject the label 'cis'?
Can I define myself as a female homosexual?

Will the above be enthusiastically embraced with reminders to those who protest that they should be inclusive and kind?

No. Because it's a hypocritical lot of bollocks.

Thinking about this further, maybe what Ruth Hunt is saying is actually nonsense anyway on a legal level. The provision for spousal consent is not a by product of there being two different marriage acts, it's a specific provision of the Gender Recognition Act, so how would changing the marriage acts affect it?

I agree tinsel, to me it sounds like muddying the waters for a specific reason. I know the no fault divorce bill is coming so I thought of that but perhaps it's something else.

This is all part of the misogyny that lis behind so much Trans activism. It is the wife who has to consent to her once and maybe long-married husband who now wants to be legally a woman. Of course she should be entitled to ask for a divorce and/or refuse to find she is now in a same sex marriage which is not what she bought or went into. It would be good to have some figures. How many women facing husbands who are transitioning and how many men who face wives who are transitioning have had spouses who want to be divorced first or who do not want to have to live in a same sex marriage whether it is the 'same' or not?

11th February 2020 James Kirkup Spectator article on the House of Lords 2nd debate 'Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill' which included discussion of the part of GRA described as 'spousal veto' by trans activists.

'The minister who politely refused to play the trans language game'

(extract)
"Lord Keen of Elie, the advocate general for Scotland and a justice minister. Before becoming a minister, Keen was a working QC at the English and Scottish bars. In other words, he’s a senior and serious lawyer.

And this is what he had to say on the ‘spousal veto’: there is no such thing.

Here’s the relevant bit of his speech:

‘The noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, raised the question of transgender people, or persons who wish to transition, which she acknowledged was outwith the scope of the Bill—which it certainly is. However, if and when we come to address that, I think that we would have carefully to approach her use of the unqualified term “veto” in respect of this matter. (continues)

One of the interesting characteristics of the transgender debate is how trans advocates have used language with care and deliberation and repetition to create an orthodoxy that few people in public life will analyse let alone question. Hence the phrase ‘transwomen are women’, a proposition that raises some big philosophical and legal questions but ones that are barely even acknowledged; anyone in politics who does not say those words is at risk of being accused of transphobic bigotry. And so an important issue goes without proper scrutiny or debate.

The ‘spousal veto’ is another example, or at least, an attempt to create another bit of the orthodoxy, and one that, for instance, the Lib Dems have signed up to in full (even though they were part of the Government that passed the relevant legislation).

And so the fact that Keen, a serving government minister, has – on the basis of fact and knowledge – very politely rejected that attempt to capture language and use it to misrepresent reality is, I think, quite important." (continues)
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/the-minister-who-politely-refused-to-play-the-trans-language-game/