If the GRA goes through is anyone planning on changing their gender?

[KenDodd]

I mean, if I legally change my gender I don't have to do anything else do I? Still dress and call myself whatever I want? I hope an 18% pay rise will be coming my way though.

I don’t actually believe in gender.

Any news on when we can expect an announcement? No surprises that the Tories lied again about it being announced over the summer 🙄

@DrChoppov

then do the most womanly thing possible immediately - get pregnant and give birth - without consequences from that legal panel

That’s a bit judgemental. It may be that Freddy does want to live as a man and believes he is a man, but tolerates the extreme dysphoria caused by being pregnant because of his desperately strong need to have a child. So he manages to cope with 9 months of dysphoria which is temporary for the sake of being able to have children.

Why do that after making a legal declaration then? I made no judgement on Freddy’s intentions. If you asked 10,000 random people what constitutes “living as a man” no one (apart from Stonewall disciples randomly caught up in survey) would say that includes getting pregnant and having a baby. Freddy made that declaration then got pregnant, within weeks. If we were to speculate on Freddy’s intentions, they were either as you say, to live as a man but really wanted a baby so decided to make that legal declaration just before immediately getting pregnant which I judge as an odd way to do things and legally questionable OR knew that making such a legal declaration then having a baby would challenge the notion of “living as a man” and allow to pursue such notions to the High Court. Who knows...

Either way, it demonstrates that the GRC panel has no legal way of setting out beforehand what “living as a man” or “living as a woman” means legally, and they have no means of challenging it if they think someone has deviated from those intentions. And that’s the GRC panel. With judges and everything.

So the possibility of self-declared notions with solicitors being either definable, questioned or revocable is laughable.

bogged down by reality

It's a common affliction.

Does being able to conceive, go through a pregnancy and give birth to young illustrate you are male or female? Or as we used to call them in human terms 'a man or a woman'?

If you picked up a biology book nowadays, how would the chapter on sexual reproduction sensitively manage that?

From what I've heard, the process is likely to include a statutory declaration where you commit to "live as" your declared gender permanently ... and apparently possible penalties if you don't.

And what are these penalties if I don't live as my legal gender (wtf does 'live as legal gender' even mean?)

Does this mean a young girl living as a boy who gets a GRC would then face legal penalties if they detranstion and gave up the binders and cross sex hormones?

@BaronessWrongCrowd

Nah. I'm flying the flag for the gender free. They're not forcing me into one of the TRA silly little tick boxes

Excellent!

From what I've heard, the process is likely to include a statutory declaration where you commit to "live as" your declared gender permanently ... and apparently possible penalties if you don't. And I think something like that was in the Scottish proposals too. Not certain what that commitment would entail but I can imagine it might be seen as a sign of "breaking" that commitment if you didn't consistently use toilets etc of the gender your had declared. It would probably also mean you'd be expected to change the sex/gender on your driver's license, passport etc. and that not doing so could also be seen as a sign of breaking the commitment in the statutory declaration.

Meh. I already "live as a man", or to choose a random one of that list of genders doesn't matter which. My 35 year old son is living with me atm and there is no difference between the way he lives, and the way I live. If it means using the gents toilets and changing rooms, because the ladies is mixed sex, I'm happy to do so, as I believe the more sensible men would be in there.
Happy to wear trousers all the time, if that's what it takes. In my late 60s, so no periods or pregnancies any more. Nobody can accuse me of being a woman as it's my identity that counts.

We women should all do this. Throw society into the total chaos it would deserve under such a law.

@Cailleach1

Why is it called the Gender Recognition Act then? Why not use sex?

Because Gender was a polite euphemism for Sex at the time the legislation was made, and it didn't occur to anyone that it would be used as it is nowadays.

Except, of course, to the activists such as Press for Change who lobbied politicians to create this legislation, and who had a long term plan.

From what I've heard, the process is likely to include a statutory declaration where you commit to "live as" your declared gender permanently ... and apparently possible penalties if you don't.

Crikey, a gift for the TRAs. A win-win.

Not only will it encourage people to stick with their appropriated 'gender' and minimise detransition stats, but they can also claim this as yet another oppression against their 'community'.

As Stonewall say, no-one can tell you what your gender identity is. They also tell us that gender is fluid and on a spectrum. In which case, how could any declaration even mean anything, let alone be enforceable?

Surely the idea that one has a permanent gender identity is transphobic anyway?

The Scottish proposals include a penalty for fraudulent declaration.

This doesn't mean claiming to be female so you get into female hospital wards etc.

It means claiming to be female or, more likely, male in order to gain some financial advantage.

From what I've heard, the process is likely to include a statutory declaration where you commit to "live as" your declared gender permanently ... and apparently possible penalties if you don't.

I don't see how it can be proven or enforced. Who decides if an action is gendered? Will it apply to trans men who conceive?

What could a male who 'lives as a woman' do that would incur a penalty for not 'living like a woman'?

My biology is the one thing I can think of that makes me a woman. I remember a secondary school biology book which showed the human skeleton. It gave the female skeleton in a perforated line outside the reference human skeleton (obviously male) as women have proportionately wider hips due to our biological function.

So, what sort of things could you refer to which nullifies you being a woman?

I put the bins out this week and am wearing a pair of jeans today. Am I living as a man?

However, if that ridiculous example was accepted as 'man living', I would be 'a woman who is living as a man'. The category for me therefore would still not be 'Man'.

@Gurufloof

From what I've heard, the process is likely to include a statutory declaration where you commit to "live as" your declared gender permanently and apparently possible penalties if you don't

The stat declaration was to a solicitor (I think that was meant to impress on us just how legal they were being) but people lie to solicitors all the time, so it's a non starter. Solicitors are not police and dont much care if you break a declaration, nor would they know if you broke it.

Also, in the Scottish proposal (and I imagine in any coming English proposal) there's some sort of waiting period before you'd get the certificate and therefore also a wait before you could change back

The point of self id is to immediately change gender once you figure out which of the 311 you are, Scotland has recently changed its definition of woman, this definition doesn't include adult human female.
And this change back gender is a bit peculiar, there are 311 genders, surely one of them would fit better than "just" male or female ?

Also ask pips bunce what gender they are on a different day, also please ask about gender on passport/DL, and also while your at it ask pips why they veer from masculinity to femme and not try one of the other genders ta.

From what the proposals seem to say, it's binary . Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that one of the things the trans activists are objecting to is that the proposed GRA changes still don't allow people to have a GRC that says "non-binary", only M & F.

And all the stuff about waiting periods was pretty clear in the Scottish proposal, at least. It seems that it simply won't be usable by "gender fluid" people (or protesters) to declare a different sex/gender on different days. From those waiting periods, it seems like it's a change that takes several weeks and would take at least as long to change back (and maybe even longer to change back because it's worded as a supposedly a"permanent" declaration?).

Seriously, I had a look through the proposal with things like this in mind (using it for protest purposes), and, if anything, it looks like there could be a risk of getting "stuck" and finding is difficult to change back.

if anything, it looks like there could be a risk of getting "stuck" and finding is difficult to change back.

Well that would be very unfortunate if you were a teenage girl identifying as male and acquiring a GRC, who then wanted to detransition. Sounds like it would be much easier for her to put on a pair of trousers, cut her hair and legally be a man than to then become pregnant and give birth and legally be a women.

Re "And what are these penalties? " I think the idea is to use existing penalties for making a false statutory declaration, so they avoid having to define a new form of crime. I'm not 100% certain but I think swearing a false oath counts as a form of perjury or something like that. So the penalties are theoretically pretty severe (years in prison) but I imagine they would treat this on the "less severe" end of the scale (probably fines?).

But, to me, the scary thing is there's no clear statement about how severe (or how light) the penalties might be. Just "penalties for swearing a false oath".

So to live as a man I need to use the gents ( can't see that going well ) . Anything else or is that it?

So to live as a man I need to use the gents ( can't see that going well ) . Anything else or is that it
Pretty much nailed it.

Just "penalties for swearing a false oath

Swearing an oath invokes God? I think, so the penalty for swearing an untrue oath in court is perjury which rarely leads to jail time. However this was mooted as swearing an oath in front of a solicitor. Different standards apply.
Also depends if you get caught and how important it is.
Consider living as a woman means little apparently and no changes need to be made (see Alex drummond) who's to say your lying?
And how important is it that you lied in this case? Not earth shattering. So penalties will be minor and probably unenforceable.

@DickKerrLadies

As Stonewall say, no-one can tell you what your gender identity is. They also tell us that gender is fluid and on a spectrum. In which case, how could any declaration even mean anything, let alone be enforceable?

Surely the idea that one has a permanent gender identity is transphobic anyway?

This.
The illogical logic. The sums that don’t add up. The Alice in Wonderland reasoning.

So, if it is just people not wanting to say sex and using the word gender instead, does that mean the real title is 'The Sex Recognition Act'? Or is the correct title 'The Gender Recognition Act'?

The correct title is The Gender Recognition Act. It changes your legal sex. There’s no difference in law between sex and gender (afaik).

The 'Sex Recognition Act' is slightly problematic as a statement of fact. It is doing the opposite of recognising you sex; it is legally allocating you a different sex.

Well I didn’t write it. You can read what it does in the actual legislation:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/9

It's still only a proposal.
Leeway to change to and fro could be included, if MSPs get a lot of persuasive lobbying for it.

@SmallPug

If they bring in self ID, what is to stop us all legally becoming men?

Why would you want to?