Freddy McConnell appeal today (Transman who wants to be registered as their child's father) *Title edited by MNHQ*

[MrsSnippyPants]

Haven't seen anything about this and it just popped up on Sky News. Hearing continues tomorrow

Newspaper report here
www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/transgender-man-who-gave-birth-21629478

Do we know the results of McConnell's case yet?

On an article I saw dated today says the case is being heard next Wed so that would be the 18th.

Saw a curious thing on a friend's Facebook page earlier. Freddie asking for help in translating a court/legal document into Swedish.
Not sure if the person circulating if knows about this situation or not or was just being randomly helpful.

Appeal lost.

twitter.com/PA/status/1255430384919117827?s=19

@itsallgoingtobefine That is really good news. They need to move on now and focus on their child, not their own selfish needs.

Someone on that Twitter thread said "identity politics needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history". I wholeheartedly agree. It's so damaging to society.

Judgment is up, v sensible and unemotional.

What a bloody relief. I wonder if it'll go up to the Supreme Court?

Some good news.

Do you have a judgment link Penguin? Can’t @ you

Permission to appeal refused according to the order.
Link is on the CA bit of the judiciary website, but I'm on my phone and can't link to it.

Good. The message needs to be uniform: be yourself, be who you want, express it however you want, but objective reality remains objective reality, and other people's lives are boundaries you cannot control or shift.

This may be the link:

www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-alfred-mcconnell-v-the-registrar-general-for-england-and-wales-and-others/

www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-alfred-mcconnell-v-the-registrar-general-for-england-and-wales-and-others/

i) At common law a person whose egg is inseminated in their womb and who then
becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child is that child’s “mother”.
ii) The status of being a “mother” arises from the role that a person has undertaken
in the biological process of conception, pregnancy and birth.
iii) Being a “mother” or “father” with respect to the conception, pregnancy and birth
of a child is not necessarily gender-specific, although until recent decades it
invariably was so. It is now possible, and recognised by the law, for a “mother”
to have an acquired gender of male, and for a “father” to have an acquired gender
of female.
iv) Section 12 of the GRA is both retrospective and prospective. By virtue of that
section the status of a person as the father or mother of a child is not affected by
the acquisition of gender under the GRA, even where the relevant birth has taken
place after the issue of a GRC.

Brilliant news!

I'll try to take a look at the judgement later.
(Or more likely I'll watch this thread for brilliant posters providing a lovely simple summary )

HuffPost 29/04/2020

Freddy McConnell: Trans Man Who Gave Birth Loses Appeal To Be Registered As Baby's Father
Freddy McConnell is a single parent who was assigned female at birth but lives as a man.

(extract)
"Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the Family Division of the High Court and most senior family court judge in England and Wales, concluded that people who had given birth were legally mothers, regardless of their gender, and said there was a “material difference between a person’s gender and their status as a parent”. (continues)

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/transgender-man-birth-loses-appeal_uk_5ea94959c5b6123a1764c362?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter

It'sall helpfully obliges

One significant point in the judgement relates to "for all purposes" in section 9(1) of the GRA:

see section 9(1) of the GRA. This is, however, subject to exceptions, to which we will return.

discussed further at paragraph 54:

It follows that, although for most purposes a person must be regarded in law as being of their acquired gender after the certificate has been issued, where an exception applies, they are still to be treated as having their gender at birth.

This is saying that "for all purposes" in section 9(1) of the GRA doesn't actually mean "for all purposes". This is significant because it is often argued, and I think was done so in Maya's case, that "for all purposes" means this and exactly this. This has always been clearly wrong but now the Court of Appeal is saying it's wrong.

Paragraph 58 is also cause for relief:

The question is not whether it would be in the best interests of YY to have the person who gave birth to him described as his mother on the long-form birth certificate. The question is whether the rights of children generally include the right to know who gave birth to them and what that person’s status was.

In the judgement effort was made to distinguish "sex" and "gender" although this wasn't wholly successful.

This is a very "legal" judgement. The decision is made based up the actual words present in the GRA and other statutes. It wouldn't take much amendment to the GRA for this judgement to have gone the other way.

Oh wow, this is looking very important.

It does increasingly separate sex and gender, although not in so many words saying so. As is clear when you read phrases such as 'planted in his uterus'. Polite and obvious fictions used so as not to jar someone's identity is one thing; to take it to the point of implying a biological sex has ceased to be isn't possible.

Yes very important:

extract from ruling with regards a core Safeguard of the Children Act:

"Secondly, it is important to appreciate that it is not only a question of interpreting one particular legislative provision in a way which might be different from its natural interpretation. As the parties themselves submitted during the hearing, there are many, inter-linked pieces of legislation which may be affected if the word “mother” is no longer to be used to describe the person who gives birth to a child.

64. We were told at the hearing by counsel for Mr McConnell that the word “mother” is used 45 times in the Children Act 1989 alone. Importantly, in our view, that is the word that is used in section 2(2)(a) of that Act. It provides that a mother has automatic parental responsibility for a child from the moment of birth. No-one else has that automatic parental responsibility, including the father. There is no need for any registration document for that purpose. The fact of giving birth to a child has that effect as a matter of operation of law. It can readily be understood why this could be important in practice. From the moment of birth someone must have parental responsibility for a newly born child, for example, to authorise medical treatment and more generally to become responsible for its care.

Furthermore, as Mr Jaffey submitted, it cannot simply be a question of this Court substituting a word such as “parent” for the word “mother”. This is because the word “parent” has a distinct meaning which has been given to it by Parliament in other legislation. This has been the product of considered legislative change over several
decades, in various statutes, including the HFEA 1990 and the HFEA 2008. The legal position under the HFEA 2008 was succinctly summarised by Helen Mountfield QC
(sitting as a deputy High Court judge) in R (K) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1834 (Admin); [2018] 1 WLR 6000, at para. 51:
“… under the 2008 Act, at birth a child always has one mother,
who is the woman who bore her; may also have a female or male
co-parent; may never have more than one male parent; and may
not have more than two parents by birth.” (continues)

It follows that, although for most purposes a person must be regarded in law as being of their acquired gender after the certificate has been issued, where an exception applies, they are still to be treated as having their gender at birth.

This is saying that "for all purposes" in section 9(1) of the GRA doesn't actually mean "for all purposes". This is significant because it is often argued, and I think was done so in Maya's case, that "for all purposes" means this and exactly this. This has always been clearly wrong but now the Court of Appeal is saying it's wrong.

Yes, it's good to see that in a legal judgement.

Poor kid, imagine wondering if you were only born to prove a point

I'd recommend reading paragraph 81. This seems to be the judges saying that laws are uncertain in this continually changing area and need to be properly drafted in the context of proper Parliamentary oversight involving consultation with the public, being the whole public and not just a segment of it.