Should the GRA be repealed ...

[NotAssigned]

... and if so how would that be achieved?

Repeal the GRA and protect the transwidows and their children, not the men with fetishes.

This ^^

The GRA has impacted so many aspects of Safeguarding frameworks.
Safeguarding is not limited to policies & protocols created by organisations either in scope or location.
Safeguarding is the responsibility that every adult has to protect children and Vulnerable Adults.

It'd be interesting to hear Mrs Goodwin's story if she's still alive.

Why don’t trans women get legal recognition as being trans women and trans men get legal recognition as being trans men? Then we all know where we are, trans women can then easily be excluded from single sex provision for women. Trans men are not sent to mens prisons etc etc.

Because that's not what they want.

I appreciate thats not want some TRAs want but it might be practical solution

It would, but good luck getting TRAs to accept it.

MujeresLibres - "Another thing I meant to bring up is that there is currently no way to 'divorce' the GRC, no back-out for detransitioners. Keira Bell has highlighted some of the difficulties this posed to her."

I don't understand why this is a problem.

The GRA provides for correction of "errors" in c 7, Section 6:

6 Errors

(1) Where a gender recognition certificate has been issued to a person, the person or the Secretary of State may make an application for—

(a) an interim gender recognition certificate, on the ground that a full gender recognition certificate has incorrectly been issued instead of an interim certificate;

(b) a full gender recognition certificate, on the ground that an interim gender recognition certificate has incorrectly been issued instead of a full certificate; or

(c) a corrected certificate, on the ground that the certificate which has been issued contains an error.

(2) If the certificate was issued by a court the application is to be determined by the court but in any other case it is to be determined by a Gender Recognition Panel.

(3) The court or Panel—

(a) must grant the application if satisfied that the ground on which the application is made is correct, and

(b) otherwise must reject it.

(4 )If the court or Panel grants the application it must issue a correct, or a corrected, gender recognition certificate to the applicant.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/6

The wording does not stipulate that the error must have existed at the time the GRC was issued, just that it "contains an error", ie. at present.

It is obvious from the minutes of the Gender Recognition Panel User Group (thank you MForstater!) that Panels and GRP Admin are incredibly supportive and go out of their way to accommodate applicants:

medium.com/@MForstater/long-slow-demeaning-intrusive-and-distressing-or-swift-professional-and-efficient-e100f2fb41f8

Is there any reason to suppose that GRPs would not be equally helpful to detransitioners?

Any plan to repeal the GRA needs to include provision for detransitioners to revert to their original birth certificates. The GRA allows for a court to issue a "corrected or correct" GRC if the original GRC was issued by a court. Perhaps the simplest way around it would be to enable courts to issue "corrected or correct" GRCs to any detransitioner?

Sorry, not yet had time to read the full thread but commenting to bookmark for later.

68 of us met on 24th June via Zoom to discuss reform/repeal. Sadly, Medium have taken down my summary of discussions but there is an archive link here if you are interested.
archive.is/SKmQC

We hope to meet again in July and set out some concrete steps for action. There was a lot of support in the group for repeal but also recognition that it is probably not achievable in light of ECHR rulings - for what it's worth I think Maya's solution is elegant and achievable.

MoleSmokes, that's great then and I hope Keira is able to do this in the future.

Informative discussion. Definitely a topic worth discussing.

Interesting thread - i would like to read up on this.

Very timely bump for this topic.

My niece has a passport showing her sex as male. If you saw her she's obviously a woman.

Do people ever come up against problems when they show their passports when travelling? I spell my middle name by rearranging one letter - I've always done it since childhood as it actually gives the word a meaning that I liked. When travelling in Thailand I had written my name the usual way on some documentation but it differed from the official spelling on my passport. A gun welding guard accosted me to know why I hadn't written my name correctly.

I could imagine that persons with passports saying they were female, but having an extremely male appearance, would run into difficulties in countries like the Emirates, India, Pakistan, etc. There are different queues for security there. Women go into a cubicle at security and are searched by other women. I think there's be a huge hullaballoo if a 6foot person with a beard and broad shoulders turned up with a "female passport".

@TheLoneRager

My niece has a passport showing her sex as male. If you saw her she's obviously a woman.

Do people ever come up against problems when they show their passports when travelling? I spell my middle name by rearranging one letter - I've always done it since childhood as it actually gives the word a meaning that I liked. When travelling in Thailand I had written my name the usual way on some documentation but it differed from the official spelling on my passport. A gun welding guard accosted me to know why I hadn't written my name correctly.

My official name is a German one with an Umlaut, and it's in my passport with the Umlaut. S . I spell it without an Umlaut in ordinary life in non-German countries, but nobody understands that the Umlaut has to be replaced with an e. So the letter becomes ue, ae, or oe, and that is correct. But people object and say I've spelt it wrong. In Ireland for instance the bank insisted on spelling it without the e, as did most of the HSE. I;ve been told: you spelt it wrong! However even on the passport, the ue spelling is written out at the bottom of the document.

Once, trying to get a visa for India in Sri Lanka, I had enormous problems because one set of authorities insisted on the u by itself, and the other on a ue. They almost came to blows.

Why not just use the u by itself? Because like that makes a most ridiculous English word.

I think people who have more pressing concerns than a Goldsmiths undergraduate understandable expect 'sex' in an official document to mean 'sex'.

to be honest I do too.

I fail to see why the state should or needs to keep a record of an individual's 'gender identity', which is effectively what this law allows to be recorded on birth certificates.

Indeed I strenuously object to the very implication that I have a 'gender identity'. It's an incredibly sexist concept.

that is just one of the reasons why the GRA should absolutely be repealed.

My last name has an Umlaut and it was the reason my application for settled status was rejected (now sorted). It's why the children have their father's last name, mine is not a name for a world dominated by English language keyboards, also nobody can pronounce it.

I’ve just done an internet search for “Repeal the GRA” and found a new campaign site. I don’t know if it has got anything to do with anyone on Mumsnet but I hope not.

Some fuckwit has gone to a lot of trouble to buy a great domain name and set up a campaign anonymously with an immediate self-destruct mechanism: by titling the first blog post, “Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits”.

Aren’t we all - but that’s like the letter, email or text you write to vent your frustration. Then you delete it and start again, this time with an eye to achieving the desired result.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I am not aware of any successful campaign for legislative change that has been championed by the slogan, “Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits”.

It is a slogan that could apply to many campaigns but not if they hope to have any chance of success. Self-sabotage doesn’t get much better than this.

Gender is a sexist concept - the idea that ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are defined by social constructs and stereotypes can’t be anything else but sexist. And the GRA was an expression of homophobia because it was introduced to avoid bringing in same-sex marriage. Yes, it should go.

this is bad law for a number of key reasons

• it mandates belief, attempting to force people into colluding with the pretence that the holder of a GRC has changed sex

• it has it's basis in homophobia - in 2004 our lawmakers preferred to pass a law allowing people to pretend to change sex rather than introduce same sex marriage

• it is inherently sexist, codifying as it does the sexist concept of 'gender identity' into law

• it is clearly confusing, having led many, many organisation to breach the equality act, thinking they were complying with the GRA

It effectively brings back punishment for heresy. Enforced belief, homophobia and sexism has no place in our laws.

It absolutely should be repealed, and citizens who want to discuss that should be able to do so without being censored.

@MoleSmokes

I’ve just done an internet search for “Repeal the GRA” and found a new campaign site. I don’t know if it has got anything to do with anyone on Mumsnet but I hope not.

Some fuckwit has gone to a lot of trouble to buy a great domain name and set up a campaign anonymously with an immediate self-destruct mechanism: by titling the first blog post, “Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits”.

Aren’t we all - but that’s like the letter, email or text you write to vent your frustration. Then you delete it and start again, this time with an eye to achieving the desired result.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I am not aware of any successful campaign for legislative change that has been championed by the slogan, “Tired of Explaining Reality to Fuckwits”.

It is a slogan that could apply to many campaigns but not if they hope to have any chance of success. Self-sabotage doesn’t get much better than this.

I thought the same.

regarding the 'tired of explaining reality' blog post - granted it's not how I would express myself, but it does very neatly express the absolute exasperation many women feel that this nonsense has been taken seriously and allowed to take hold.

it's one woman's voice. There are a multitude, and they won't all put their arguments in the same way you would.

the solution is to put your own arguments out there. The more voices, the better

Laws can and are repealed. Public consultations, such as the Surrogacy Reform one, lead in the current law being outdated and old fashioned, not fit for purpose, etc. It's how we are lead to believe that it needs changing. It is largely lead by lobby groups who want it to be easier and for parental rights to be with the commissioning parents from birth.

For me there's no reason to believe that another campaign groups couldn't lobby in the same way, the difference being this is lead by women so let's see...

For a relatively quiet launch to even discuss Repeal, just a website link posted here or there, resulting in multiple thread deletions in response to mass reporting is astonishing. Then the website is down for several hours in the middle of the night? Could have been a server update or something but it's a funny coincidence.

I hope it's that and that it really isn't an attack on free speech to discuss existing law. Imagine how that would have gone with Repeal the 8th!

Goodness, everytime I click on this thread, it's a different one. Although, for clarity, I am talking about this thread now, not another one.

Am I here at all....

The interesting point in the OP is 'how might this be achieved', as I think most posters on this thread (and indeed most feminists) would support the repeal of such a sexist law.

Some one has noted (possibly on another thread, I too am losing track) that interest groups lobby for changes in the law all the time. A recent example is the law society consultation on surrogacy which is clearly driven by the interests of commissioning parents and surrogate agencies.

So I think the answer is campaigning. and to do that the people who support this view need to organise.

A website has been launched with the aim of repealing the GRA, although linking to it does seem to result in posts being deleted. It can be found through google although not high up the search rankings yet...