Why do you think so few people have applied for / acquired a GRC?

[QuimReaper]

I was surprised to read recently that the number of people who hold a GRC is under 5,000, when apparently 500K people in the UK self-identify as trans. I'm just wondering why that might be - I'd have thought a majority of trans people would want their chosen pronouns on documentation. I note the fee has been reduced following the last GRA review, although I cannot possibly believe it was contributing to the low numbers originally.

Is it simply that having a GRC doesn't really impact your day-to-day life very much beyond having 'Mr' or 'Ms' on your bank statement etc.?

Hmmmm only if you were to be buried in a sex segregated cemetery for religious reasons I suppose. I guess there are these on the world?

What difference does legal sex make to a burial?

Bugger all to the buried, who is dead and knows nowt about it.

Kith and kin matter more at that point but is still of low priority in the long term.

That point is emotional and personal rather than of historical relevance - and that is what you are when you are dead: history.

I have had to come to terms with this with an uncle whose grave has been moved and then moved again. It has been gut-wrenchingly upsetting to go through this but give it a few years and none of us personally affected will be around to bother.

What matters is truth - and the truth is persistent, scientifically verifiable biology, not unverifiable subjective and variable “gender feels”.

Or like Karen White who simply self ID’d into a woman’s prison without a GRC or have you forgotten?

No, haven't forgotten. The difference between KW and a male with a GRC, though, is that KW was put in a women's prison at the discretion of extremely unfit for purpose decision making processes. A GRC holder has to be placed in the female estate.

No one else’s business most of the time.

But there are times when it is.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

No one else’s business most of the time.

But there are times when it is.

I'm trying to think of examples where id is needed, but sex is ultimately irrelevant. Buying alcohol, travelling abroad?

How can employers and organisations prove that they meet the EA if they don't know sex of their employees for example?

How can employers and organisations prove that they meet the EA if they don't know sex of their employees for example?

Indeed.

3. Why bother? As others have said, I can change everything apart from my birth certificate, marriage certificate (neither of which I want to change) and certain pensions records without a GRC. Trans people might complain about Corbett v Corbett (that put a stop to the previous informal process that changed birth certificates) but it left in place the right to change passports, driving licences, bank records, medical records (!!!), and the rest with - at most - a letter from your GP. We had effective Self-ID in 1970, and nobody else realised. How good was that?

It cannot be seen as "good" by anyone concerned for Safeguarding that any teacher, social care or health professional working with children or vulnerable adults can hide their male sex and history.

Any adult working in these areas who has used what are loopholes in the Safeguarding framework to change their key documents (passport/DBS/qualification certificates etc) is demonstrating a disregard for Safeguarding & Child Protection principles.

The GRA is outdated, was never meant for the amount of people that wanted self ID, and wasn't ever publicly consulted on.

We had effective Self-ID in 1970, and nobody else realised. How good was that?

This sounds horribly like you're saying you'd found a loophole in laws that were there to protect women. I trust that wasn't what you meant?

That’s timely. In a recently resurrected thread, a reference to the part of the GRA2004 that covers the process if there is an error in a GRC. I’d completely forgotten this was in the Act as well as in the minutes of the GRC Panel (eye roll at myself as it was me who posted this previously):

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?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3941154-should-the-gra-be-repealed?msgid=97731665

We had effective Self-ID in 1970, and nobody else realised. How good was that?

Previous important thread collating evidence and history of transactivism in the UK prior to 2004 GRA
provides insight into the history and location of transactivism in UK.

AngryAttackKittens wrote:
"I'm going to point every "but the nice, harmless old school transsexuals whose movement has been unfairly appropriated by the nasty transgender people" person to this thread from now on.

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new."

Previous thread, OP Sunkisses wrote:
'BBC Open Door programme 45 years ago on transsexuals - a real jaw dropper
I did a search of Mumsnet and couldn't see any other posts about this extraordinary 1973 discussion show which was produced by transsexuals 45 years ago where they were given free-reign, free from editorial control. Four transsexuals are joined by a psychologist and an MP.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06c83f4/player

Where to start? Maybe with the show's producer and host, Della Aleksander, who is the most bizarre of all the participants. Della starts by claiming that a "chastened and wiser" Adolf Hitler and Queen Victoria have said, through a medium, that "there was a special role for me, in the reconstruction following a world wide collapse in 1978-79". Della also claims to have been sent from another world where the sexes don't exist and that transsexuals are the only model of a "higher race"! Della also claims to have founded the neo-Nazi sounding European National Movement in South Africa whilst serving in the Army there (I couldn't find any info on them, but they sound well dodgy to me).

Della also seems utterly confused, mis-using the terms 'bisexual' and 'intersex', and appearing to think these words mean transsexual, and that the appearance of nipples on a man means 'we are all transsexuals'. Della is, thankfully, corrected by the psychologist at 33.53 mins in who states that it is important to use the correct terminology, but Della wafts such trivialities away by saying "I don't want to get bogged down in medical questions". The MP, Leo Abse, argues against the 'trans umbrella' (before this term was invented by Stonewall etc) at 36 mins in.

There is clear evidence of autogynephilia (AGP - the sexual fetish of a man loving himself as a woman) at 33.23 when Della says the "sex act" is a "transsexual one", as "one attempts to become and absorb the beloved".

At 26 mins in one of the speakers, Rachel Bowen (the working class northern transsexual with dark hair), says that having a female birth certificate is a "status symbol". Another of the transsexuals, Laura Pralet, at 27 mins preposterously claims that "we are not a minority", and "I have never been a homosexual", even though Laura lives with and has married a man. Laura also says their husband is never happier when they are "in the kitchen", and at 31 mins in says they wanted to become a woman as "women have the best deal anyway".

It's absolutely fascinating and well worth a watch."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3327193-BBC-Open-Door-programme-45-years-ago-on-transsexuals-a-real-jaw-dropper

R0wantrees - ”Laura Pralet, at 27 mins preposterously claims that "we are not a minority"

Something that struck me when I first saw that was that Della Aleksander shut Laura down very abruptly at that point and I wondered why.

My first thought was that at that time “minority” was shorthand for “ethnic minority” and I wondered if Della thought Laura was being racist and didn’t want to risk any expansion on that theme.

Then I wondered if Della was shutting Laura up because the official line was, “There are so few of us!” and Laura was letting the cat out of the bag.

It certainly didn’t look like a genuine, “Don’t be silly, dear!” moment.

Then I wondered if Della was shutting Laura up because the official line was, “There are so few of us!” and Laura was letting the cat out of the bag.

Yes, the official line during the GRA debates in parliament was that only about 5000 people would be eligible for a GRC.

Now we have people asking why 'only' about 5000 people have a GRC when there are about 500,000 trans people in the UK.

If parliament had been told that half a million people were likely to apply for GRCs they'd never have passed the original GRA. Same sex marriage and equal pension age would have looked like a much more acceptable solution.

Della also seems utterly confused, mis-using the terms 'bisexual' and 'intersex', and appearing to think these words mean transsexual, and that the appearance of nipples on a man means 'we are all transsexuals'

Cf Recent interview with Eddie Izzard and Lorraine Kelly,

The Sun, 'SHE'S GREAT Eddie Izzard and Lorraine Kelly fight back tears in emotional moment as presenter calls the star ‘a fantastic woman’
Mary Gallagher
7 Jan 2021
(extract)
"All girls are foetuses, the nipples are there because they could have been breasts... stop being so obsessed about this, we are all human beings, we need to make it work."

www.thesun.co.uk/tv/13674232/eddie-izzard-lorraine-kelly-tears-amazing-woman/

Where to start? Maybe with the show's producer and host, Della Aleksander, who is the most bizarre of all the participants. Della starts by claiming that a "chastened and wiser" Adolf Hitler and Queen Victoria have said, through a medium, that "there was a special role for me, in the reconstruction following a world wide collapse in 1978-79". Della also claims to have been sent from another world where the sexes don't exist and that transsexuals are the only model of a "higher race"!

Wikipaedia entry for Stephen Whittle (founder of 'Press for Change' lobby group which drove the GRA and other legislation) highlights Aleksander's influence when still a child:

(extract)
"In 1966 his mother, Barbara Elizabeth Whittle (née Stead), being concerned at how different he was from his sisters, entered him in the examination for Withington Girls' School. Being one of the highest scorers in the city in the Eleven plus exam that year, he received a scholarship to attend. It was during his time at Withington Girls' School that he started reading medical books. He knew he was romantically attached to other girls at school – he never told them, and so his love was not reciprocated – but he also knew that he was sexually attracted to men. On top of that was a strong desire to be a man, to grow a beard and to have a hairy chest. He had read articles about people like Della Aleksander and April Ashley who had had a sex change. In 1972, at the age of 16, whilst visiting his doctor about a sore throat he read about a trans man" (continues)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Whittle

Wikipaedia entry for Stephen Whittle (founder of 'Press for Change' lobby group which drove the GRA and other legislation) highlights Aleksander's influence when still a child

Guardian, 'Voices from the trans community: 'There will always be prejudice'
Patrick Barkham
22 Jan 2013
(extract)
"Whittle, who "transitioned" nearly 40 years ago, was one of three trans men and three trans women who did an unusual thing in 1992: they went to meet Liberal Democrat MP Alex Carlile in Westminster. The unusual element was not the meeting but the fact that they travelled together – at the time, trans people never dared to because it increased the likelihood that they would be spotted and abused. These six wanted to start a campaign group; Carlile advised them to avoid the word "transsexual". So, in Grandma Lee's teashop opposite Big Ben, an anodyne name, Press for Change, was chosen. (continues)

In the 90s, when [Christine Burns] was chair of the Women's Supper Club of the local Conservative party association in Cheshire, she quietly joined Press for Change. Even then, the new activists dared not be openly trans. "The thing that held us back in the 1990s campaigning was that fear of being out," admits Burns. Eventually, she came out in 1995; she jokes that she realised she was more embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party than openly transsexual.

Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press". (continues)

When trans people were allowed to legally register their changed sex in 2005 there was an awful tangle over marriage. Fearful of creating a situation where two women could be legally married, the government decided that trans women who married when they were still men must have their marriage annulled to receive legal recognition as women. So while Ashley finally became a woman in law (with a bit of help from John Prescott, with whom she worked with in a hotel in the 1950s – "a very charming young man", she says), married couples who have stayed together through one person's transition still have to divorce if the trans person's gender is to be legally recognised. (continues)

"In 25 years, [James] Barrett has seen trans people become "a networked bunch" – more so than other people, he thinks – thanks to the internet. Lees, who also works for Trans Media Action, says social media is the "essential catalyst" for the transformation of trans people in society. "Society is in transition and we've woken up from the operation and there's no going back. We can't pretend that trans people don't exist any more," she says. "People have been taking the piss out of trans people for 60 years. The narrative on trans issues has been controlled by people who have no understanding of them. Social media is about us grabbing the narrative back and telling our own stories – this is our reality, this is what we go through and this is what matters to us. We're here, we're in your face, we definitely exist. That's the most important thing – realising we exist." (continues)

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

I wasn't aware that there are specific differences in how someone is buried which is dependent on their sex. In a funeral for a transgender person the mourners can refer to that person using the name and pronouns they knew them by when they were alive. They wouldn't need a GRC for that.

Death certificates have sex on. Most people won’t want their wife’s death certificate to say ‘male’ or their husband’s to say ‘female’.

Also some transsexual people are parents, legally. So there are trans men like Whittle who are recognised as the legal father. If the family works, then they should be able to have that right.

They shouldn’t be prevented from that because there is the occasional criminal trans woman in the world.

Whittle is not a legal father. Maybe a second parent as per same sex couples but a woman cannot be a father.

I think he is their legal father. He’s legally a man, not a woman.

Also some transsexual people are parents, legally. So there are trans men like Whittle who are recognised as the legal father. If the family works, then they should be able to have that right.

They shouldn’t be prevented from that because there is the occasional criminal trans woman in the world.

There are a whole host of good reasons why people shouldn't be able to get a birth certificate falsely stating they were born the opposite sex to their own.

Whittle will be registered as the mother on the child's birth certificate.

www.ngalaw.co.uk/knowledge-centre/trans-parents-and-legal-parenthood

They shouldn’t be prevented from that because there is the occasional criminal trans woman in the world.

I don't know why you think this has anything to do with criminals.

Do you think we should be allowed to change our age at will as well? I'd like my death certificate to say I died at 100 because that's a nice round number. I am not a criminal, it doesn't hurt anyone, please be kind and say that falsifying my documents is fine.

I don't know why you think this has anything to do with criminals.

Some of the reasons being given for repealing the GRA are around safety of women’s spaces/ safeguarding.

My main reason is privacy and dignity. I expect a female-only space to be female only.