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

I mean, even with a long form certificate that listed Freddie as the father.

I don't think that anyone would need the birth cert to guess who gave birth to this baby. Having inaccurate information on there - just why would you? I haven't seem=n my birth cert since god knows when (probably when I got married, but who knows?).

When you have a baby, you kind of hand over the focus to the child - they can't survive without you, you chose to give birth to them, you are responsible for their physical and emotional wellbeing. It's just not all about you anymore. It's about the baby.

29/4/2020 Stonewall statement (in full):

"Laura Russell, Director of Campaigns, Policy and Research, Stonewall said: ‘We’re incredibly disappointed to hear that Freddy McConnell has lost his appeal to be recognised as his child’s ‘father’ or ‘parent’.
'Once again, the Courts have missed a vital opportunity to send a positive message that recognises all parents, including LGBT parents, for who they are.

‘Today’s news is going to be a disappointing blow for trans communities. This is another example of how current legislation contradicts the fragile equality trans people currently have, where they can have full recognition on some legal documents, but not on others.

'Updating this legislation will also benefit others in the LGBT community, specifically same-sex parents, who face similarly inaccurate and unequal representation on their children’s birth certificates. Equality is not a luxury and this legislation desperately needs to be updated so trans people can be recognised for who they are.'

www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/statement-ruling-against-freddy-mcconnell

from the judgement:

(extract)

"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. (continues)

This is a conflict between the claimed 'rights' of individual adults & the responsibility to Safeguard children.
Stonewall seems unconcerned by the responsibility to Safeguard children & dismissive of the importance of the Children Act.

Who have birth to the child? That’s the child’s mother.

It’s
Really
That
Simple

From that Stonewall statement quoted above:

Updating this legislation will also benefit others in the LGBT community, specifically same-sex parents, who face similarly inaccurate and unequal representation on their children’s birth certificates. Equality is not a luxury and this legislation desperately needs to be updated so trans people can be recognised for who they are.'

Which ‘same-sex’ parents are they talking about? Lesbians already have the ‘second parent’ option on UK BCs for the female partner/spouse of the mother.
What’s in the mother box in the BC isn’t relevant to gay male couples at all, as obviously neither of them are the mother of their child. What am I missing here, what is Stonewall actually advocating for? Why not just state it plainly?

Presumably removal of Mother's PR & status in surrogacy arrangements? With regards Stonewall's interest this would be most relevent to gay men.

ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

Yes, I agree the thinking is there is no need. And for a few they are happy with it.

What I find more - disconcerting? - are the numbers of intelligent people who are like your SIL. Apparently educated, capable of logic, etc, who are holding together this mishmash of views and ideas which don't add up.

I guess what this maybe shows us is how much it is the case that people who are considered the thinking people in society are really just cobbling together some version of what they see as the right/true thing to believe, without ever really examining it. They assume that it fits together.

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.

Presumably simply meaning the person who gave birth to the child.

Equality is not a luxury and this legislation desperately needs to be updated so trans people can be recognised for who they are.

This is a complete misreading of the purpose of a birth certificate and the meaning of the word mother on the birth certificate.

Plenty of people have people listed on their birth certificate who did not go on to parent them, either because of family break down or adoption. A birth certificate is not an approval stamp for the parents, it is just a record of a birth.

reposting previous comment from thread:

The hashtags in this photograph of Freddie McConnell & Dustin Lance Black are significant.
Freddy McConnell identifies as a gay man (its said on a parallel thread that FC's partners are females who also identify as gay men)

Freddy McConnell's concern is for (gay) men's rights:

#seahorse #seahorsedad #gaydad #gaydads #dustinlanceblack #dadlife #surrogacy #pregnancy #rainbowfamily #familycreation #familyplanning #lgbtfamily #toddlers #toddlerlife #fulltimedad #transman #dad #papa #family #raisedbygays #parenting

threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3296286-Commercial-surrogacy

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3706683-SURROGACY-CONSULTATION-ENDS-IN-10-DAYS-SOME-SUBMISSIONS-TO-DRAW-ON

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3474712-law-commission-review-of-surrogacy-laws-just-streamlining

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3649812-building-families-through-surrogacy-a-new-law-consultation

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3491073-And-so-it-came-to-pass-Mail-on-Sunday-gay-male-couple-offered-fertility-treatment-including-surrogacy

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3606313-The-Rumplestiltskin-Law

Ireland:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3550686-Surrogacy

With regards Stonewall's interest this would be most relevent to gay men.

Yep. My assumption was so there could be father and father on the birth certificate and remove the mother from the babies history.

I really think the idea of "living as the other sex" was never ever meant to be understood as constituting what it means to be a man or women. It was just part of a therapeutic practice where someone who was considering significant medical measures to alleviate serious symptoms of dysphoria is looking to see if a) they seem to even help and b) if the medical element might be unnecessary and the social element was enough.

While we may or may not feel that approach is even helpful, I think taking the phrase out of that context was simply never appropriate. It was only meant to be used in describing a practical strategy for a patient under supervision. There was no deeper intent around what sex is, what a woman is, or any larger policy decisions. As a result it simply can't bear the weight of that use.

I think carrying and giving birth to a baby is possibly the most ‘living as a woman’ you can get. I may be wrong...

Presumably removal of Mother's PR & status in surrogacy arrangements? With regards Stonewall's interest this would be most relevent to gay men.

Yes. This kind of decision could be used to prevent all kinds of legislation that supports access to biological parentage or putting it on birth certificates on the grounds that it would be homophobic - we can "create" all kinds of birth certificates that reflect what someone wants reflected rather than the biological reality. It would justify eliminating the child's realtion to surrogate mothers or gamete donors.

Yep. My assumption was so there could be father and father on the birth certificate and remove the mother from the babies history.

More likely it is to remove 'mother' & ensure the 'commissioning' parents have PR from birth.

This kind of decision could be used to prevent all kinds of legislation that supports access to biological parentage or putting it on birth certificates on the grounds that it would be homophobic - we can "create" all kinds of birth certificates that reflect what someone wants reflected rather than the biological reality.

It would remove the fundamental Safeguarding protection of the new born child by its mother.

However as the finding of the Appeal Court makes clear as well as the Children Act, HFEA legislation protects & identifies the unique responsibility of the mother to the new born child:

(extract)
"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 Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General 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)

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/McConnell-and-YY-judgment-Final.pdf

Equality is not a luxury and this legislation desperately needs to be updated so trans people can be recognised for who they are.

Make the baby validate the trans person.

They really just can't see it, can they.

‘Today’s news is going to be a disappointing blow for trans communities. This is another example of how current legislation contradicts the fragile equality trans people currently have, where they can have full recognition on some legal documents, but not on others.

Me, me, me.
When will they understand that a birth certificate is not there to validate the (trans) parents, but as a truthful record of the child's birth, parentage, nationality, age etc?
Honestly, I despair.

It positions the 'want' of validation above children's Safeguarding & mothers' protections/rights.

“… under the [HFEA] 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.”

This is what Stonewall is campaigning to change.

The agenda is not, has never been "recognise ME".
It's always truly been "UNrecognise HER"

That female human? Unrecognise her. I want her name, so that I can claim her rights.
That person who created a baby? Unrecognise her. I want her name, so that I can claim her rights.

Nameless people, nameless bodies, nameless lives, nameless functions.

No name means no rights.

Only by UNrecognising female people, and unrecognising female biology, can you replace and reassign names and rights to men.

So, the half of humanity who are biologically female? Unname them. Reassign the name to those powerful enough to claim it. Let them be nameless.
The people who give birth? Unname them. Reassign the name to those who didn't. Let them be nameless.

It's never been about gaining recognition. Noone can recognise the unrecognisable.

It's about forcing an unrecognition of everything in law that related to female bodies, female people, female functions, so that any and all specifically female rights ascribed expressly because of those female bodies, people, functions, could be claimed by those who do not need them, but very much demand them.

Barracker's Law

If you can describe it, but can't or mustn't name it, it is vulnerable.

If you can name it, but can't or mustn't describe it, it is powerful.

Yes, Barracker. Erasure of woman and women - first as a concept, then as a biological reality, ultimately as human beings entitled to human rights.

So, the half of humanity who are biologically female? Unname them. Reassign the name to those powerful enough to claim it. Let them be nameless.
The people who give birth? Unname them. Reassign the name to those who didn't. Let them be nameless.

Another bit of fabulous dot joining insight from Barracker.

That's exactly right. Freddie McConnell wanting to be a father is being used for the converse. Freddie McConnell is female, and none this is about the rights of women.

This is about the rights of men to be called mother.

Is it just getting rid of women though? I don't thing egg donors or sperm donors usually go on the birth certificate do they? Surrogates seems to depend on jurisdiction?

I know in a feminism chat the tendency will be to see this as directed towards women, but to me it looks like to a large extent it's about allowing people with money to dictate how a child's birth certificate is recorded, cutting out whomever makes them feel uncomfortable in some way.