Gender-neutral passport rules are 'unlawful', Court of Appeal hears

[LittleCabbage]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50638629

The government's rules on gender-neutral passports are "unlawful" and breach human rights, a court has heard.

Judges at the Court of Appeal are hearing the case of campaigner Christie Elan-Cane, who wants passports to have an "X" category for those who do not identify as fully male nor female.

The campaigner believes the UK's passport process is "inherently discriminatory".

Lawyers representing the home secretary are contesting the legal challenge.

The case centres on whether the current policy run by the UK passport office - which is part of the Home Office - is lawful.

Currently, all UK passport holders have to specify whether they are male or female.

Christie Elan-Cane believes the policy breaches the right to respect for private life, and the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender or sex, under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The campaign for recognition of non-gendered identity in UK law and society started more than 25 years ago.

Last year, a High Court challenge calling for gender-neutral passports was lost but the case has now been taken to the Court of Appeal.

On Tuesday, Christie Elan-Cane's lawyer, Kate Gallafent, told the three judges: "There is little which is more fundamental and deeply personal than an individual's gender identity."

She said those affected by the government's current passport rules "face a choice between the degrading experience of applying for, bearing and using a passport that does not accurately reflect their gender identity, or forgoing the use of a passport at all."

People who do not consider themselves as exclusively male or female include members of the trans community and intersex people.

The UN says up to 1.7% of the world's population are born with intersex traits - about the same number of people with red hair.

Male, female and non-binary

The "X" stands for unspecified for people who do not identify as male or female.

Earlier this year, Canada introduced gender-neutral passports with an X category.

Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, India and Nepal already have a third category.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation - the UN agency in charge of air travel - also recognises the "X" option.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday's legal action, Christie Elan-Cane said: "Legitimate identity is a fundamental human right but non-gendered people are treated as though we have no rights.

"It is unacceptable that someone who defines as neither male nor female is forced to declare an inappropriate gender in order to obtain a passport."

It comes as the government prepares to publish its response to a consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the piece of law that sets out the legal process by which a person can change their gender.

The government said it had more than 100,000 responses to the consultation, which it called "exceptionally high".

In October, the minister for women and equalities, Liz Truss, said it needed time for consideration and she wanted to study it closely.

During last year's High Court proceedings, Christie Elan-Cane's lawyers challenged the lawfulness of the policy administered by Her Majesty's Passport Office.

James Eadie, acting for the home secretary, said the policy maintains an "administratively coherent system for the recognition of gender" and ensures security at national borders.

Ruling on the case in June, a judge said that although he was not at that time satisfied the policy was unlawful, part of the reasoning for the decision was that a comprehensive review had not been completed.

regard "gender identity" as a curiosity that doesn't mean anything except to the declarant
That pretty much sums up the whole identity bollocks in a nutshell!

I hope sensible countries refuse to accept those ridiculous X passports and send the idiots who possess them back home.

Independent story:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gender-neutral-passports-uk-british-christie-elan-cane-court-a9389786.html

What sex border guard would Christie like to perform an intimate search?

That’s why the ‘F’ is important.

There are self decribed 'rational' male TS who think it important that they are searched by female border officers.

At some point the unions and employers will have to consider the rights/welfare of those female staff required to do intimate searches or 'pat downs' as part of important security measures.

The same issues apply to door staff, female police and prison officers

God almighty. “Forces” people to say whether they’re male or female.
What percentage of the population would have an issue with that, I wonder?

More seriously, the thing about passports is that they're intended to be used all over the world. Let's say this person got a British court to allow them to put and X on their passport where the sex should be. What happens when they arrive in a country that doesn't believe that humans come in more than 2 sexes? Going by my experience traveling I'd think that would be more likely to trigger an invasive and humiliating search than to avoid one.

I hope sensible countries refuse to accept those ridiculous X passports and send the idiots who possess them back home.

Its surprising that there havent been issues raised by the expectation of some countries that other states accept the travel documents with a false description of the holder's sex.

Aya! Apparently, according to some Tweets, this could all be avoided if the government just got over itself

Indie story using male pronouns. Seems a bit weird for an ‘assigned female at birth’ person who claims to be ‘non gendered’

www.speakoutlondon.org.uk/file/21/download?token=DU15OGit

Was it Dubai that Gigi Gorgeous (I know the name is cringeworthy) wasn't allowed into because the passport control people flagged them as a problem due to appearance versus travel documents? I have no idea what the passport said in that case but it's an example of the fact that some countries will balk at passengers where there appears to be any confusion.

The role of government is to protect citizens.

Accurate official identification documentation such as birth certificates and passports are key parts of Safeguarding frameworks.

I have no idea what the passport said in that case but it's an example of the fact that some countries will balk at passengers where there appears to be any confusion.

Also plenty of countries require you to declare a sex at passport control. When I went to the US a few weeks ago it was tick a box M or F on the landing card.

Any time I have had to get a visa for a country it has always asked either M or F

Presumably the same thing applies when they ask for M or F and the reality causes them to do a double take?

Indie story using male pronouns. Seems a bit weird for an ‘assigned female at birth’ person who claims to be ‘non gendered’

Their pronouns are on their Twitter and appear to be per/pers/perself.

For ‘person’, I’m presuming.

extract from link above:

Christie Elan-Cane
"ever since puberty I’d not been able to come to terms with the body that I loathed, and that I would cover up, even in the summer. I felt something was profoundly definitely wrong, and ultimately knew that I would have to have surgery. So, I set about looking for a surgeon and it took several years. Finally I was able to have the first procedure, a bilateral mastectomy, in 1989, at the beginning of that year, and then,
after that felt compelled to … I felt that I’d started on a journey, and it immediately felt right, and it was something that I never regretted. The only regret that I had was that I was by then in my thirties and it had taken so long.
I wanted to go through the next stage which was to have a hysterectomy, which I had at the end of 1990. So there was effectively nearly a two year gap between the two procedures but after that I felt that I had ... and in so doing, bypassed the gender recognition clinics completely, and was able to achieve my … my physical transition. But it was ... I felt that I’d completed that part of my journey but it was raising more questions than it answered. I was by then fairly sure that I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t … I was … did not really identify as stereotypically … as bi. I didn’t know what the hell I was except that I felt that I didn’t feel that I was either male or female" (continues)

There are many women who have had to have double mastectomies & hysterectomies due to cancer diagnosis or prevention following BRCA testing.
The suggestion that a woman who has such operations becomes less female is deeply disrespectful.
Doctors should be better at supporting people with clearly difficult feelings & distress about their body, sexual orientation and/or gendered expectations.
(Its telling how frequently Christie Elan- Cane uses the words 'I felt')

I know it’s an unanswerable question, but how do you not feel either male or female?
I think it’s indicative of mental health issues, tbh, to even imagine that you’d essentially “tried on” both sexes (how?) and neither of them fit.

The push for trans rights has been very much rooted in the “right to a private life” argument.

If you can just make up what goes on your passport, what’s the point of it? If you can choose your sex to one that isn’t accurate, why can’t you change your date of birth or place of birth or name or picture?

Exactly, and the same with birth certificates etc. Madness.

I know it’s an unanswerable question, but how do you not feel either male or female?

It seems more often:
"I dont want to be male/female"
"I dont want to be treated/recognised by other people as male/female"
"I want to be treated differently to how I think people treat people who are male/female"
"I want access to both male & female rights/spaces"

Christie Elan Cane was a witness at Maria Miller's women & Equalities Trans Inquiry 2015

(alongside Sue Pascoe of Conservative Party, MESMAC, Channel 4 Inclusion consultant)

parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/4e7f52c6-1357-43f8-98c0-af160b156b40

It’s just a shame that there hasn’t been any consideration of other people’s rights...

What sex border guard would Christie like to perform an intimate search?

Exactly. But also, if a TW gets their passport changed to F, do female guards have to search them?

Interestingly, in a paper written in 2000, Elan-Cane seems to be rejecting the notion of the existence of more than two genders:

I cannot agree with the argument that there are in existence a number of alternative unidentified genders, all just waiting in the wings to be discovered, because I do not accept that the identity has to be gendered, that is I do not accept that human beings have to be gendered as male, female or anything else in between or apart from. There are two accepted gendered roles which are appropriated according to the physicality and to state that one is neither male nor female but belonging of another gender (or more than one gender) is, I'm afraid, confusing the issue because the gendered status of the person is a socially accorded role and society has only appropriated validity to the gendered statuses of male and female.

www.gender.org.uk/conf/2000/elancane.htm

In my opinion, at the core of this is yet another female person who has looked at our male-dominated world and sought for a way out. Yes, this is someone who has been campaigning for over 20 years, and has clearly thought deeply about identity. But what is clear from all the writing, is the fact that to Elan-Cane, the only oppression that counts (or exists even) is that of the "ungendered" by the "bi-gendered".

There seems to be neither understanding nor empathy employed in this single-minded campaign for the impact on the female sex class if sex ceases to matter while the hierarchy remains intact that places the male sex class firmly on top.

Just a demand to abolish the administrative distinction without first redressing the power imbalance. We fought long and hard for rights and protections rooted in that distinction and removing the latter will result in removing the former, too.

But I feel trumps all, I suppose.

COA have ruled that the Home Office's refusal to issue "X' gender passports is currently lawful but may become unlawful in the future.

I want my passport photo to be of Drew Barrymore. She is a about my age and looks vaguely like me, but is infinitely more attractive. I identify as much more attractive than I am.