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

Barracker
Wow
The unnamed
Just wow.

Out of interest, who does the birth certificate legally belong to? I wonder if a child or adult has ever gone to court to gain possession of their birth certificate? My assumption is that it belongs to the person whose birth it records and that a patent or guardian is merely holding it in trust for the child until appropriate time ie adopted children can get their original birth certificate at 18. Therefore as with most family matters, the court makes decisions on what it thinks is in child not parent’s best interests. And by mentioning references to mother in children’s act FM has shot themselves in the foot, royally. All those mentions of mother would make it a mothereffing load of rethinking for rafts of legislation. And for that reason I should expect Supreme Court won’t be making the world fit round to FM

I think the birth certificate is "owned" by the country, it's a public record not a private toy.

It's only job is to record information accurately.

Anyone can order a copy of the birth certificates held in the register.

Birth certificates are really a "copy" of an entry in the register of births. The register is "owned" by the State - the General Register Office to be precise. Parents must register a birth with the GRO, who enter the details in the register. Parents can then buy a birth certificate, which is copy of the details recorded in the register.

I’m so pleased that the judgement has gone this way. I keep thinking about the child’s future, and how all the action Freddy is taking seems so woefully to miss the potential impact on the child. The child is barely even mentioned. Definitely very uneasy about these attempts to unmoor the concepts of birth and motherhood. Is there any impact on, for example, maternity discrimination claims if men can also give birth?

Imagine it does get forced through. It’s twenty odd years in the future and the kid has now grown up, wants to marry someone from another country and wishes to apply for residency. They fill in the first few boxes on the form, all, fine, and then they get to the one that asks for details on their birth. Freddy Junior pauses, cursor blinking, above the box that says “mother’s name”...and looks at the paragraph in the rules that says “both parents names must be supplied”...

Freddy Junior sends his birth certificate off to be apostilled and maybe translated, so he can use it in the application. The lawyers call him up: “Um, the space where there should be a mother’s name is blank, I don’t know what to do?”

Oh dear. Freddy junior isn’t moving to his new country after all. But at least Freddy Senior was validated.

Freddy junior sighed, wondering why their 'father' was so insistant to act like a man when in reality this person they loved as a father was in fact, a female who had given birth.
Freddy junior thought this pretence that had caused so many problems throughout life and had become such an immense strain keeping up the lie that he...

.. Freddy junior felt bereft at the loss of a mother, the one thing every that every child craves.

Every

I actually think Goose and R0 are arguing practically the same thing here. I think this is indeed about the commodification of children, and I also think that the function of cases like this is to sever the reality and reason for having the mother recorded on a legal document.

Yeah, I'm not actually sure what the disagreement supposedly is.

The point seems to me to be that once it is ok to fill out a birth certificate in order to satisfy a social narrative, you've lost the link to that objective basis around who this child is.

In some ways I think the registering the mother as father business is sort of a niche expression, not many people will want to do that but it has larger implications. It's really about being able to say that child belongs to the people who control what goes on the birth certificate.

It's like the "my pronouns" business, isn't it? A fundamental misunderstanding (deliberate or otherwise) of the way language and society works, and a belief that reality can be manipulated and changed via social engineering, and should be.

Pronouns are not "yours", they are something other people use to describe what they perceive about you. A birth certificate does not belong to the parents, it's a recording of an event that the child may in the future use to prove their identity. Theirs, not that of their parents or even the one their parents wanted them to have.

Individuals cannot be allowed to distort the reality of others around them as a treatment for their mental health issues. The judge was right to say no.

And by mentioning references to mother in children’s act FM has shot themselves in the foot, royally. All those mentions of mother would make it a mothereffing load of rethinking for rafts of legislation. And for that reason I should expect Supreme Court won’t be making the world fit round to FM

This might be true were we not living in an era of judge-made law where laws are recast to suit various agendas, for example progressive ones.

I completely agree with comments that what's happening here is a bid to untether the connection between mother and child and thus to commodify the child and enable "ownership" for whoever has the most advantageous position to establish a claim.

Like so often with these things, only one side is litigious.
If there was a pressure group acting on behalf of the child's rights, perhaps arguing that all children have a right to an accurate record of their birth, and a legal mother, then perhaps the authorities wouldn't be so quick to capitulate every time.
I was hoping with women's rights that organisations such as LGB Alliance might use their funding to fight legal battles, but gofundme has pulled the plug on them.

I think there is some recognition that pooled resources are key to fighting legal overreach/institutional and judicial capture.

This should have been thrown out because (allegedly) the individual set up a film, then lied to get a GRC, then ten days later started private IVF (funded by?) all recorded for the film, the individual has the baby and then suddenly we have this legal challenge.
And yeah, I used "lied" because the question as to whether the individual intends to live permanently as a man could not truthfully be answered in the affirmative when pregnancy was sought ten days later.

Interestingly Japan was accused a while ago of forcibly sterilising trans people because they insist the individual has no current children under 20 and that they have both a diagnosis and "reassignment" surgery.
It's described as evil but it avoids this kind of situation.
www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/19/japan-compelled-sterilization-transgender-people
I think the "reassignment" surgery is barbaric and am not advocating it for anyone but it shows more intent than changing your name on your gas bill.

Also agree 100% this is about making the sale of babies easier.

This might be true were we not living in an era of judge-made law where laws are recast to suit various agendas, for example progressive ones.

Recent case awarding costs of comercial surrogacy in US:

Guardian 1/4/2020
UK woman wins claim for NHS to pay US surrogacy costs
Woman was left infertile after NHS trust failed to detect signs of cervical cancer
(extract)
"Lady Hale, the former president of the supreme court who gave the majority decision, said: “The courts have bent over backwards to recognise the relationships created by surrogacy, including foreign commercial surrogacy. The government now supports surrogacy as a valid way of creating family relationships, although there are no plans to allow commercial surrogacy agencies to operate here.

“It is no longer contrary to public policy to award damages for the costs of a foreign commercial surrogacy. " (continues)

But delivering the dissenting judgment, Lord Carnwath said: “The fact that the laws of other jurisdictions and other systems may reflect different policy choices seems to me beside the point. It would in my view be contrary to [the] principle [of consistency between civil and criminal law] for the civil courts to award damages on the basis of conduct which, if undertaken in this country, would offend its criminal law.”

Cara Nuttall, a solicitor in children and fertility law at JMW Solicitors, said: “Some people prefer to go abroad to undertake commercial surrogacy because it is generally quicker, as it removes the lengthy wait for an altruistic surrogate that many face when undertaking a domestic arrangement.

“Much of the current law that governs surrogacy in the UK dates to the mid 1980s.... It has for some time now been accepted there needs to be a general overhaul of the law as it stands, to bring it in line with current social trends and advances in medical and scientific technology." (continues)

www.theguardian.com/law/2020/apr/01/uk-woman-wins-claim-for-nhs-to-pay-us-surrogacy-costs

The angry screeching about the situation in Japan is very telling. Oh no, the law there states that in order to change their documents people have to actually do the very thing that they keep saying they have to do or they'll be at risk of suicide? How, um, terrible, assuming that trans people actually want to transition, how ever could they have come up with such a law?

(The no kids under the age of 20 thing is just that being the age of legal adulthood, at which point a parent is no longer legally responsible for their kids in the same way, so it's the equivalent of setting that age at 18 in the UK.)

What's going on there is that to campaign for what TRAs claim they want they would need to argue, publicly and clearly, for self-ID with no medical interventions at all. If they did that then they'd be throwing away the human shield of transsexuals and the argument that no one could possibly go through such "an extreme process" to indulge in a fetish.

A key part of the campaign is "most suffering ever, so be kind or be a bigot" while making sure everything is kept as vague as possible. That's why court cases are proving to be helpful. As soon as a judge in a court room says "tell me as clearly as possible exactly what it is you're asking for and why you should get it" things can easily fall apart.

they'd be throwing away the human shield of transsexuals and the argument that no one could possibly go through such "an extreme process" to indulge in a fetish

Agreed but it's no use to us, as the counterargument is that surgery does in fact make someone the opposite sex.

Which many women don't believe, and which positions us in favour of what is frankly barbaric genital surgery with a massive rate of surgical revisions and complications.

So although they are completely hypocritical, and are indeed using transsexuals to further the sexual rights of fetishists, the only thing we can do is reflect some sunlight in that general direction.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine - "I needed the long form for school registration, and opening a bank account..."

and Singasonga - "The long form version is the one that is required to access the child's rights as a resident of the UK (healthcare, education)."

These all seem very unlikely and in the case of schools they should definitely not be asking for the "long" form Birth Certificate - although they might be doing so in ignorance of statutory guidance.

BANKS

Banks do not normally ask for a birth certificate as proof of identity. If you do not have photo ID (passport, driving licence, etc.) then they will accept a birth certificate but I cannot find a single example of a bank or a relevant advice agency suggesting that a "long" form birth certificate would be necessary. In several cases banks specify that they will accept either a short or long form certificate.

Where birth certificates are mentioned for children they are included in a list of options, eg. "letter of recommendation from the child's school".

Example - Nat West:

"Proof of identity we accept for under 18s

If the account is being opened by an adult on behalf of a child, proof of identification and address is required for the adult and proof of identity for the child. If the surname of the adult and child doesn't match, you must provide documentation to show the link between the applicant child and parent/guardian."

Followed by a list of sub-menus with further options and info:

personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/what-do-you-need-to-open-a-current-account.html

EDUCATION

This is the statutory guidance for school admissions. There is only one mention of birth certificates and that is to emphasise (bolded in the original text) that schools " must not ask for a ‘long’ birth certificate or other documents which would include information about the child’s parents."

If schools are asking for "long" birth certificates then they could be challenged on this.

Dept of Education - School Admissions Code
Statutory guidance for admission authorities, governing bodies, local authorities, schools adjudicators and admission appeals panels

Section 2: Applications and Offers Applying for places

(bolding as in original)

2.4 In some cases, admission authorities will need to ask for supplementary information forms in order to process applications. If they do so, they must only use supplementary forms that request additional information when it has a direct bearing on decisions about oversubscription criteria or for the purpose of selection by aptitude or ability. They must not ask, or use supplementary forms that ask, for any of the information prohibited by paragraph 1.9 above or for:

a) any personal details about parents and families, such as maiden names, criminal convictions, marital, or financial status (including marriage certificates); 


b) the first language of parents or the child; 


c) details about parents’ or a child’s disabilities, special educational needs or medical conditions; 


d) parents to agree to support the ethos of the school in a practical way; 


e) both parents to sign the form, or for the child to complete the form. 


2.5 Admission authorities may need to ask for proof of address where it is unclear whether a child meets the published oversubscription criteria. In these cases they must not ask for any evidence that would include any of the information detailed above. Once a place has been offered, admission authorities may ask for proof of birth date, but must not ask for a ‘long’ birth certificate or other documents which would include information about the child’s parents. In the case of previously looked after children, admission authorities may request a copy of the adoption order, child arrangements order or special guardianship order and a letter from the local authority that last looked after the child confirming that he or she was looked after immediately prior to that order being made.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf

HEALTH

Access to some NHS and GP services is free for everyone, including over-seas visitors and migrants who are not normally resident in the UK. Otherwise, access to free services is based on "normal residence".

If a birth certificate is required at all to prove a child's entitlement to health services then it will be in unusual circumstances. The "long" form would only be needed if parentage was an issue.

If the child was born in the UK and NHS or GP services were involved in the birth then the child will have been issued with an NHS Number by the NHS service or GP automatically at birth. An NHS Number is not proof of entitlement to health services but it means that the child will be "in the system" and issues of entitlement at that point will have been clarified.

GP services do not normally require a birth certificate to register a child. However, if you are registering a child in your care they may ask for proof of your identity.

About NHS hospital services (extract)

You'll usually need a GP referral to access hospital treatment, except in an emergency.

Is hospital care free on the NHS?

Hospital treatment is free if you're ordinarily resident in the UK.

If you're visiting England or recently moved to England, look up the relevant information about accessing the NHS, as charges may occur.
The services and treatments listed below are free to all in NHS hospitals in England, including overseas visitors:.

• A&E services – but not emergency treatment once you have been admitted to hospital

• family planning services – but not termination of pregnancy or infertility treatment

• treatment for most infectious diseases, including sexually transmitted infections (STIs)

• treatment required for a physical or mental condition caused by torture, female genital mutilation, domestic violence or sexual violence – this does not apply if you have come to England to seek this treatment unless you have applied for, or have been granted, asylum status

continued at:
www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs-services/hospitals/about-nhs-hospital-services/

How to register with a GP practice (extract)

Registering with a GP

When you have found a practice you like, you'll have to formally register with it as an NHS patient by submitting a registration form to them.

The GMS1 registration form (PDF, 156kb) is available at the practice, or you can download it from GOV.UK.

Forms may vary slightly, and some practices use their own version.

When you have completed and returned the form, NHS England will transfer your medical records to your new practice and write to you to confirm your registration as a patient with that practice.

If you're registering a child under 5, you'll have the option of registering them for the Child Health Promotion Programme.

This means your child will be invited for regular health and development checks. Ask the practice for more details.

If you have no proof of address or identification

Some GP practices may ask for proof of identity when you register, especially when you register children in your care.

This may be used to check your details match with the information held on the NHS central patient registry and that your previous medical notes are passed on to the new practice.

You should not be refused registration or appointments because you do not have a proof of address or personal identification at hand.

It's not considered a reasonable ground to refuse registration.

This also applies if you're an asylum seeker, refugee, homeless patient or overseas visitor, whether lawfully in the UK or not.

If you fall under one of the above mentioned patient groups, download one of the "How to register with a GP" patient leaflets below and bring it with you when you register with a GP practice.

from:
www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs-services/gps/how-to-register-with-a-gp-practice/

NHS entitlements: migrant health guide

www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-entitlements-migrant-health-guide

Visiting or moving to England
Advice about healthcare if you're planning to visit or move to England.

www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/nhs-services/visiting-or-moving-to-england/

I have accessed those and other relevant NHS pages searching for "birth certificate" and could not find any evidence that a "long" form birth certificate would be requested. In most cases there was no mention of a birth certificate at all.

If a child's UK birth certificate is being requested as proof of entitlement to access health services, it does not appear to be something that the Government is expecting to happen.

Happy to be corrected if anyone can point me to the relevant info.

Sorry, you're right about schools, Mole. NHS guidance seems to be in conflict with the Home Office hostile environment policy though, as proof of citizenship/legal residence is now required to access GP services.

You do need a long form birth certificate to apply for a British passport if you were born overseas or after 1982.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/birth-certificates-and-the-full-birth-certificate-policy/birth-certificates-and-the-full-birth-certificate-policy

My children are donor conceived and therefore the different information disclosed on the long form and short form birth certificates is relevant to us.

I have never ever been asked for the long form version for any purpose from education to health to financial services.

However it is still very important to have the long form version. It’s a statement of fact and I’m not in favour of hiding facts, least of all on a government document. If anyone ever officially needed to know my children’s parentage (contesting a will perhaps?) they should be able to see a documented statement of the truth.

Singasonga - "NHS guidance seems to be in conflict with the Home Office hostile environment policy though, as proof of citizenship/legal residence is now required to access GP services."

"You do need a long form birth certificate to apply for a British passport if you were born overseas or after 1982."

BUT - None of this is relevant to FM's claims as reasons for the court case, ie. the projected "embarrassment" of being "outed" by being named as the mother of the child on the "long form" Birth Certificate.

From some of the sob-story write-ups in the press you could get the impression that this would be discussed in public at the school gate - conjuring up heartrending vignettes of humiliation.

In fact, these are all bureaucratic "back office" processes involving civil service admin paperwork, not "face to face" encounters.

No different in fact to the impersonal submission of application forms and documentation of "living as the opposite sex" to GRC panels.

The surrogacy issues and children as commodities are all pretty stomach-churning but I wonder if they are actually the main aims?

I firmly believe that the whole "long" form birth certificate issue as something that could embarrassingly "out" the mother as a GRC-holding trans person is a complete red herring.

Much was made of it when the case first went to court, as a real-life practical problem for the mother. Now the issue is portrayed as being all about injustice.

As a stepping stone in the long game being played, I think TheCuriousMonkey is on the money.

"Birth certificates are really a "copy" of an entry in the register of births. The register is "owned" by the State - the General Register Office to be precise."

The Birth Certificate is not the target, it is - as was the GRA2004 - the Register of Births. The Register is the routine bureaucracy underpinning statutory recognition that:

• humans are male or female

• females are mothers and males are fathers

Trans activists have undermined this reality:

• first by the mechanism of the GRA

• then later by seeking to have births recorded without the sex of the baby being included

• and, in this case, by seeking to definitively legitimise their fantasies and lies about the sexed reality of humans by altering the legal, statutory requirement to record any and everyone's maternity and paternity (when known - in the case of the Register of Abandoned Babies even the mother is unknown).

FMs actions and case build on the, I think deliberate, conflation of sex and gender in the GRA2004 in furtherance of embedding the "Yogyakarta Principles" in UK law.

(Murray Blackburn MacKenzie, aka MBM Policy Analysis, provide a succinct demolition of the spurious status of the "Yogyakarta Principles" in response to the Scottish proposals to reform the GRA2004 here:
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2019/10/13/gender-recognition-act-reform-international-best-practice/ )

The original YP and the "Yogyakarta Principles plus 10" are nothing more than "wish lists". If they are given any credence then equal credence should be given to the Universal Declaration on Women's Sex-based Rights:
womensdeclaration.com/declaration-womens-sex-based-rights-full-text/

The Yogyakarta Principles (2006) were supplemented by the "YP+10" in 2017. In one sentence, of nearly 50 words, the term "intersectional" occurs twice. If ever there was a BS quotient, this has to be a contender!

"The YP plus 10 document emerged from the intersection of the developments in international human rights law with the emerging understanding of violations suffered by persons on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and the recognition of the distinct and intersectional grounds of gender expression and sex characteristics."

The YP+10 includes a whole section on "ADDITIONAL STATE OBLIGATIONS", ie. over and above the original Yogyakarta Principles.

Reminder - this is just a wish-list put together by a handful of activists. It is not a list of actual international "State obligations"!

Relating to the Right to Found a Family (Principle 24):

RELATING TO THE RIGHT TO FOUND A FAMILY (PRINCIPLE 24)

STATES SHALL:

H. Protect children from discrimination, violence or other harm due to the sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics of their parents, guardians, or other family members;

I. Issue birth certificates for children upon birth that reflect the self-defined gender identity of the parents;

J. Enable access to methods to preserve fertility, such as the preservation of gametes and tissues for any person without discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics, including before hormonal treatment or surgeries;

K. Ensure that surrogacy, where legal, is provided without discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics.

• - - - -

As I have said before, I consider the engineering by FM of pregnancy immediately post-GRC via IVF, followed by a court-case seeking to remove the status of "mother" from the statutory birth record, to be both cynical and depraved.

I have no sympathy for FM at this point as I consider these actions to be comparable to Mengele in terms of disregard for the humanity and autonomy of the child concerned. However, I sincerely hope that mother and child will be able to establish a loving and mutually respectful bond.

We only get one life and one chance of happiness. FM's child will be his or her own person and will, one hopes, be able to establish themselves as strong enough in their own self-worth to rise above the sordid circumstances of their creation by FM.

Further to Flying Oink and Prodigal Kittens posts above this podcast from The Documentary on the BBC world service from earlier in the year provides further information on Japans response to trans issues - "Trans in Japan"
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zqpnr

I agree with everything you've written Mole, just pointing out that the long form certificate isn't entirely redundant. I think it's significant that the main use now is for passports, as the nationality of the parents (both of them now, thought it used only to be the mother) is what conferes citizenship, not the place of birth.

Singasonga - I agree with you. The "Long form" birth certificate is by no means redundant.

The issue is that FM falsely made it out to be a cause of "outing" and therefore leading to supposed stigma, humiliation, etc.

The whole case was based on lies.