Government says it is too complex to make changes to the GRA to include non binary

[stumbledin]

As set out in the response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation, there are no plans to make changes to the 2004 Act.

Following a considerable amount of consultation with the public and representative organisations, the Government decided that the current provisions within the GRA allow for those that wish to legally change their sex to do so fairly.

The 2018 GRA consultation did not bring forward any proposals to extend the GRA to provide legal recognition to a third, or non-binary, gender. The Government noted that there were complex practical consequences for other areas of the law, service provision and public life if provision were to be made for non-binary gender recognition in the GRA.

In UK law individuals are considered to be the sex that is registered on their birth certificate – either male or female. The GRA provides a means for transgender people to change the sex on their birth certificate, but there is currently no provision for those who do not identify as male or female.

This Government wants everybody in the UK to feel safe and confident to be themselves.

We are committed to tackling all forms of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime, and are working with the Home Office on the cross-Government Hate Crime Action Plan. The Government has asked the Law Commission to review the current hate crime legislation, which includes exploring whether homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime should be considered an aggravated offence. We will also take an assessment of local support for hate crime victims and improve reporting and recording of LGBT hate crimes through supporting additional police training.

Following Parliamentary approval on 8th October 2020, voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity were included in the 2021 Census for England and Wales which took place on Sunday 21 March 2021. Final data on sexual orientation and gender identity from the 2021 Census for England and Wales will likely be available from 2023, with initial Census findings planned for publication in March 2022 (timelines subject to change as work progresses). This will help to provide more robust population size estimates for England and Wales than are currently available.

This Government is committed to supporting all LGBT people, tackling discrimination and improving the lives of all citizens.

Cabinet Office
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This is in response to a petition that I will not link to for fear this thread will get banished to the wastelands of the petition section.

But there is a news story here. uk.news.yahoo.com/non-binary-legal-recognition-too-153914753.html

For example by definition a transsexual will almost certainly be dysmorphic therefore the idea of them exposing themselves to women is negligible.

Why did you go to indecent exposure? I was talking about safeguarding in general not one specific crime.

Also, I would be interested how you came to the conclusion of 'negligible'. Given that grc is protected, it's very difficult (maybe impossible) to know the number of people with a grc who have committed indecent exposure.

The fact is that the chipping away at single sex provisions is all coming from the starting point that all males can choose based on their personal identity and that legislation must acheive that at all and any cost.

The chipping away started with the GRA with the idea that a man can somehow become a woman for all intents and purposes, it is reductive. Once that was put into law no matter what the purported gatekeeping it ruled that woman as a biologically defined legal concept was available to men. It should never have happened.

The EA doesn't give those with the PC of GR access to the provisions of the opposite sex.

It most certainly does!

For example by definition a transsexual will almost certainly be dysmorphic therefore the idea of them exposing themselves to women is negligible.

A quintessentially masculine perspective!

They still have the male socialisation that encourages them to prioritise their desires and dismiss women's needs or feelings as irrelevant (if they are even noticed). They still have the physiology that results from male puberty, being taller, stronger and faster than almost all women.

@BlueLipstickRocks

The EA doesn't give those with the PC of GR access to the provisions of the opposite sex.

It most certainly does!

Not automatically. In some cases yes.

There's lots of interpretation of the single sex exemptions but it's not automatically overidden by reassignment automatically.

That's what women are pushing back on.

It makes a nonsense of sex exemptions to say they are a personal choice.

Duplicate automatically!

@BlueLipstickRocks

The EA doesn't give those with the PC of GR access to the provisions of the opposite sex.

It most certainly does!

It most certainly does not. Even the EHRC in its old Stonewall guise conceded that.

The personal choice view of single sex means that those whose personal choice is single sex get NO CHOICE.

@BlueLipstickRocks

The EA is an intersectional mess.

I entirely agree. The EA is contradictory and awful legislation driven by Stonewalls influence on EHRC. Thankfully EHRC have seen the light.

Gender Reassignment is not Gender Identity.

As to GRA its still a hugely gatekept process and I don't see it as being the big issue. 5,000 GRC holders in 15 years versus 600,000 transgender at lowest estimate so that's much less than 1%.

I agree with you here BlueLipstick.

However, wasn't the point of lowering the price meant to make it more accessible. Hasn't the process been tweaked to allow more people to get a certificate?

Out of interest, what effect do you think this will make?

@Cleanandpress

The personal choice view of single sex means that those whose personal choice is single sex get NO CHOICE.

Exactly, and the ones for whom that removal of choice impacts on the most are surprise, surprise women, the very people who need it the most.

From the EHRC in 2018 (my bolding):

At the same time, a trans person is protected from sex discrimination on the basis of their legal sex. This means that a trans woman who does not hold a GRC and is therefore legally male would be treated as male for the purposes of the sex discrimination provisions, and a trans woman with a GRC would be treated as female. The sex discrimination exceptions in the Equality Act therefore apply differently to a trans person with a GRC or without a GRC.

So no. It is not the EA which gives access to single-sex spaces, services and sports to members of the opposite (legal) sex.

Hasn't the process been tweaked to allow more people to get a certificate?

Not at all. Price was never a barrier as for those on low income it was waived so many never paid a penny.

The criteria never changed.

The number of doctors willing to diagnose people who self-ID as trans with gender dysphoria - a condition with no objectively measurable criteria - increased significantly, though.

Which is a factor.

*The number of doctors willing to diagnose people who self-ID as trans with gender dysphoria - a condition with no objectively measurable criteria - increased significantly, though.

Which is a factor.*

Not for a GRC. There is a small pool of approved doctors.

The idea that a man can get female recorded on their birth certificate and that change has to remain confidential has compromised women and childrens safeguarding and the ability of informed consent.

This. The GRA is very much a problem.

@BlueLipstickRocks

*The number of doctors willing to diagnose people who self-ID as trans with gender dysphoria - a condition with no objectively measurable criteria - increased significantly, though.

Which is a factor.*

Not for a GRC. There is a small pool of approved doctors.

Many of us have read the blogs by the males (which I am sure you and would both agree are not dysmorphic or dysphoric) gloating about how easy it was to get a GRC because certain doctors assisted with a GD diagnosis.

It most certainly does!

No it doesn't, that's a misrepresentation.

So no. It is not the EA which gives access to single-sex spaces, services and sports to members of the opposite (legal) sex.

This. We have had a million threads about this, the EA does not give positive rights to MTF trans people to access women's spaces and services. GRC (male) holders are in most cases considered legally female so a higher bar is needed to exclude them. But there are exemptions even to that, both to the GRA and EA.

Many of us have read the blogs by the males (which I am sure you and would both agree are not dysmorphic or dysphoric) gloating about how easy it was to get a GRC because certain doctors assisted with a GD diagnosis.

Plenty say it - doesn't mean it's true.

Many lie about this because frankly noone wants to admit they don't qualify.

As to GRA its still a hugely gatekept process and I don't see it as being the big issue. 5,000 GRC holders in 15 years versus 600,000 transgender at lowest estimate so that's much less than 1%.

The GRA was only intended to apply to about 5000 people, which was the estimated number of transsexuals at the time the law was passed.

If a figure of 600,000 had been mentioned in the parliamentary debates at that time, I suspect a different solution might have been found to comply with the ECtHR ruling that transsexuals should be allowed to marry someone of the same sex.

Just catching up.

Blue stands by the comment that women on this thread want to lock blue up in an asylum.

Well then. There's a lot of women on this thread. If you think that's the sort of thing women generally want for people then I would suggest you don't know women as well as you think you do.

Also the idea that given women's past and present of being locked away because they didn't conform, or for any number of other reasons.

The suggestion that actually this is an action women support as long as it's done to someone else.

Crikey.

@BlueLipstickRocks

Press for Change managed to get the GRA through without anyone really noticing what was happening.

Why is the GRA seen as the issue? PFC drive the EA changes not GRA.
Even before the GRA we had the Sex Discrimination Act (Gender Reassignment).

Transsexual law has existed for decades. It was the EA that introduced self id into law.

Press for Change were very much involved when the GRA was passed.

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".

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

@BlueLipstickRocks

Many of us have read the blogs by the males (which I am sure you and would both agree are not dysmorphic or dysphoric) gloating about how easy it was to get a GRC because certain doctors assisted with a GD diagnosis.

Plenty say it - doesn't mean it's true.

Many lie about this because frankly noone wants to admit they don't qualify.

But these are people who DO qualify, so they wouldn't be trying not to admit they don't.

@BlueLipstickRocks

Many of us have read the blogs by the males (which I am sure you and would both agree are not dysmorphic or dysphoric) gloating about how easy it was to get a GRC because certain doctors assisted with a GD diagnosis.

Plenty say it - doesn't mean it's true.

Many lie about this because frankly noone wants to admit they don't qualify.

and because there is no mechanism nor anything whatsoever available to anyone to refute this lie those who are lying are self-idying their way into spaces and services safe in the knowledge that they will never be challenged because a GRC is deemed such a high status secret. This is the problem and this is why single sex spaces and services MUST be delineated on biological sex only, no ifs, buts, maybes, it is wide open to abuse and that abuse is happening and was always going to happen.

This is not the fault of women, it wasn't even contemplated that women should have a say, the blowback is not the fault of women either, our needs and wants do not align with this and maybe, just maybe if we'd been considered or even bloody well asked a different and more effective solution that safeguarded everyone would have been found.