Should the GRA be repealed ...

[NotAssigned]

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

Yes.

I have changed my position on the GRA since learning that a man does not need to have surgery to change his birth certificate, and there are people who support the right of a convicted sex offender to be placed in a woman's prison, just on his declaration that he feels like a woman.
I assumed a GRC would never be available to a convicted offender.

Society has changed, gay marriage is legal now. The GRA just looks outdated and homophobic.

I think it is the issuing of a new birth certificate is the main issue rather than the GRC itself. Effectively the state is issuing false documentation and encouraging all the nonsense about changing sex. It muddies the water between sex and gender. A GRC should go alongside the original BC and states that this individual lives as a member of the opppsite sex but is not a member of the opposite sex for purposes of sex based protections. This is the reality of the situation.

only 5000 have a GRC

Not all of those 5000 are MfF either.

A GRC should go alongside the original BC and states that this individual lives as a member of the opppsite sex

But what is the point of that? If sex segregation is to be upheld on the basis of actual sex, it just means pronouns and clothes.

Why does anyone need a certificate in order to wear certain clothes or asked to be addressed by certain pronouns?

It's important to look at the purpose of the law.

It was not a validation of identity; it was allowing a very small group of people (5000 were predicted and the uptake was near exactly that over 16 years) to have the legal fiction of the other sex in order to have equality in rights of marriage and pensions.

That was it. It was never intended to do any other job.

It's been radically repurposed. In the meantime, every possible concern raised (viewable in Hansard) about the impact to the female sex has happened, with a whole lot more than the MPs and HoL ever foresaw.

It would be very easy to have a legal recognition of TW/TM/NB status and chosen name, without it providing a legal fiction of sex having changed in a way that sacrifices what sex means or the right of female people to any provisions where males are not.

Freddy McConnell has proven that it’s legislation that means nothing: to be given a GRC, commit to “living as a man” until death, then immediately getting pregnant and having a baby, the most female thing possible. The fact that Freddy had these intentions, was given a GRC, and has been allowed to continue with impunity, shows that either

a) the legislation is meaningless and/or
b) the legislation is unenforceable

What’s the point of it then?

Criminal record, including sexual assault and abuse of of females, is also no barrier to gaining a GRC.

Yes should be repealed and the Equality Act tweaked. Trans rights would be protected under beliefs and disability (sex dysphoria)

But what is the point of that? If sex segregation is to be upheld on the basis of actual sex, it just means pronouns and clothes.

Why does anyone need a certificate in order to wear certain clothes or asked to be addressed by certain pronouns?

@Datun Thank you. Nail. Head. As always

Why does anyone need a certificate in order to wear certain clothes or asked to be addressed by certain pronouns?

Why should certificates be issued to people which require compelled speech from other people?

Yes, but I would like to see better support and treatment for people with gender dysphoria and other mental health concerns.

Which given current lack of funding of mental health services is sadly unlikely. MH provision is already cinderella a service and that situation is likely to deteriorate as the economy tanks and the government has to be seen to invest - or at least make headlines - about funding for the Acute sector and Care Homes.

As this is the feminism board we rightly centre women, but I think it is true that Transpeople are a vulnerable group. Not necessarily at risk of assault and murder as TRAs claim, but there are often other concerns.

Nearly all of the Transpeople I have met have had complex lives, with difficult and often traumatic childhoods, they give histories of fragile mental health during adolescence and have poor mental health into adulthood. I have been involved with adults who want "just one more procedure" to make their lives perfect and I have known their expectations won't be met. Then there are those who are lonely in later life with poor health, people for whom it is difficult to find a partner to have a long term relationship with, and yes they are vulnerable to DV and exploitation.

So yes, I want the GRA revoked to reclaim the rights of women, but I would also like to stop the merry-go-round that does so much damage to the very people clueless, noisy activists claim to want to help. People can't change sex and it is transpeople who suffer the most as a result of that fiction.

Yeah I think tis redundant now anyway. It was only brought in as same sex marriage was illegal, and for equal pension age.

Those who already have one though, obviously keep it. Just no more from now on. No reason for them these days..and its about 500k people now, rather than 5k.

Freddy McConnell has proven that it’s legislation that means nothing: to be given a GRC, commit to “living as a man” until death, then immediately getting pregnant and having a baby, the most female thing possible.

We do need a clear and unequivocal definition of what it is to 'live as a man', and what a woman has to do to show she is living as a man. Similarly for a man who claims to be 'living as a woman'.

Sometimes I think it would be much better if gender was legally separate from sex.

Yes Al1Langdownthecleghole

Given the fragile mental health of a lot of trans people, as recently evidenced by the howls of rage and pain after J. K. Rowling said sex was real, it would be wonderful if places like mermaids, Stonewall, GIRES, etc, gave their money to research into gender dysphoria.

That is, apparently, a very transphobic point of view. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where organisations purporting to support trans people, are actually making sure they continue to profit from them.

It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where organisations purporting to support trans people, are actually making sure they continue to profit from them.

Indeed. It's the ultimate capitalism.

Once you define it, it all falls apart.

There's a hole in every bucket.
What is a woman
What is female
What is sex
What is gender

If you ever get an answer to these they will either be circular, or the end of the chain of questioning will be undefined.

If female means what female actually means, no male could ever have a female marker on any document.

You have to redefine millions of people in a class to allow a different class of people to appropriate their name.

Yes, it should be repealed. How - in the same way any other Act would be.

It's important to look at the purpose of the law.

It was not a validation of identity; it was allowing a very small group of people (5000 were predicted and the uptake was near exactly that over 16 years) to have the legal fiction of the other sex in order to have equality in rights of marriage and pensions.

That was it. It was never intended to do any other job.

It's been radically repurposed. In the meantime, every possible concern raised (viewable in Hansard) about the impact to the female sex has happened, with a whole lot more than the MPs and HoL ever foresaw.

And on top of all that, it does nothing to promote acceptance of gender nonconformity, not even accidentally.
It turns 'gender' into a weird, sexist, goal-oriented process with labels, and no amount of tinkering with the GRC criteria will solve its fundamental flaws.

A GRC should go alongside the original BC and states that this individual lives as a member of the opppsite sex

No, because this presupposes that there's a way to live "as a member of the opposite sex" without having that biology.

Wearing clothes, painting your face, styling your hair as you see fit - these are not woman-things, they are human things.

Living as a woman means menstruating / worrying that you're not menstruating / dreading that you're going to menstruate / having investigations into why you're not menstruating / thanking your lucky stars that you no longer menstruate. The female biological reference points are what allow our experiences to be described as "living as women" rather than "living as humans".

No. That [people realising gender roles are oppressive to all] doesn’t address sex dysphoria.

It does if you're not wilfully blind to the fact that strictly enforced sex-roles and sex-role stereotypes are major factors in sex dysmorphia.

Go and read the accounts of the old-school transsexuals, if you don't believe me. Read about their childhoods. There's a common theme. Rigid and often violent enforcement of masculinity standards; rampant homophobia; corrective physical and sometimes sexual abuse crop up again and again.

There might not be much that can be done for those who have intractable sex dysmorphia right now, but we could sure as hell be doing more to reduce the number of kids laying the foundations for it right now.

Just once I'd like to see someone actually define "living as the opposite sex". If you can't clearly define it then it has no business being included in laws.

I would like to see better support and treatment for people with gender dysphoria

A new theory being proposed is that some men have an addiction which presents as dysphoria.

Just once I'd like to see someone actually define "living as the opposite sex". If you can't clearly define it then it has no business being included in laws.

I remember talking to an hsts person around the time the GRA was brought in. We had an excellent rant about how bloody ridiculous the "two years' living as the opposite sex" requirement was, because it reinforced sexist stereotypes. Requiring hsts people to adopt a ridiculously overblown parody of "women's clothes" in order to get legal recognition didn't help them or us at all; and look where it's ended up - blokes dressed as the worst excesses of the 'whore' stereotype thinking this makes them women.

*Just once I'd like to see someone actually define "living as the opposite sex". If you can't clearly define it then it has no business being included in laws”

I thought it was having a culturally female-associated name on a gas bill.

There might not be much that can be done for those who have intractable sex dysmorphia right now, but we could sure as hell be doing more to reduce the number of kids laying the foundations for it right now.

Indeed.

I still have to pinch myself sometimes with the insanity of it all.

Gender dysphoria is being taught to children in school. By identifying who you are on the basis of a series of drawings with Cinderella at one end and GI Joe at the other.