Spousal veto - labour proposal , is it really a problem now?

[Appleofmyeye2023]

Hi, did look to see if thread raised on this.
with the news yesterday about labour change in direction, but still wanting to “simplify” GRC process, they confirmed that they would still want to remove the “spousal consent” part. Obviously seen a fair amount of outcry on this.

whilst I completely agree that no one should be required to stay married when the terms of their marriage have shifted , is this need for spousal veto to end the marriage still a problem given the divorce law changes last year.

historically, the need for spousal veto was obvious. The newly trans spouse could refuse to consent to a divorce and force the other spouse to 5 years of marriage before the marriage could be divorced. Even if the trans spouse agreed , it would take 2 years plus if adultry hadn’t been committed. Undoubtedly a cruel and unnecessary burden on a spouse who didn’t want to remain in marriage to a spouse who wanted to change genders.

But, divorce laws have changed. Irrespective of any behaviours or consent of either party, a divorce now goes through a single “no blame” process and timeline. No matter what the real reason for divorce is there is now a minimum of 26 weeks time. Neither party can object. It is enough for just one party to say the marriage has irreparably broken down.

now we can argue that 26 weeks is still too long in these circumstances. When I saw the changes I was quite shocked as, imho, more critically it means people in abusive marriages have to also wait 26 weeks now, whereas in my case I completed divorce in 14 weeks due to safe guarding issues. But, this was debated and government determined that other safe guarding processes were available such as abatement orders etc

so, taking time line aside, we are now in situation that no trans partner can force a marriage to continue for years because they don’t consent to the petition. Divorce WILL proceed whatever the circumstances and whatever the views of the non petitioner

Either I’m missing something here , or I’m right in thinking that the spousal veto is no longer required, irrespective of any changes to the GRC.

can anyone explain to me why the spousal veto is still needed please

Oh bless. Too many nap times to juggle?

Please RTFT

Going by the other threads it's a train spotting, barrack room lawyer, TW collective. Which describes a few of the little trans groups that "campaign" for "human rights".

Sympathy to any transwidows and families involved.

Yes, yes and yes.
I don’t think two years is rushing a divorce. The average timescale for a divorce in the U.K. from submitting papers to decree absolute is 7 months.

“There literally is no way a spouse could secretly start living openly and socially as the opposite sex without their wife noticing.”

There absolutely are situations where this could occur, some examples off the top of my head… if a couple separate but do not divorce because the wife is Catholic and would rather live separately and remain married than divorce, she needs to be informed that she now has grounds for an annulment, where one partner works away a lot of the time (at sea for example) and is able to hide their transition, where a person may be an unpleasant person and deceives their spouse by hiding things from them.

She would know for at least two years that that is where her relationship is going because, again to be eligible to apply the applicant must have lived a minimum of 2yrs openly and socially as the opposite sex. That’s not something you can hide from a spouse.

And here we go, the illogical extremes are going to be trotted out that can only apply to that rare breed of married couples that live thousands of miles apart and never see each other.

“If a couple separate but do not divorce because the wife is Catholic and would rather live separately and remain married than divorce, she needs to be informed that she now has grounds for an annulment” - hogwash she would have grounds for annulment through the church for abandonment already.

Or how about a woman who is willing to live with her husbands cross dressing but thinks an actual documented change of legal sex is a step too far for her, doesn’t realise this he has started the GRC process, and having her documents amended to show she’s in a same sex marriage is sprung upon her because she was never given notice?

Ahhh the old “it’ll never happen”

“hogwash she would have grounds for annulment through the church for abandonment already.”

But her civil documents, the publicly available ones that will be available forever will show her in a same sex marriage.

The good thing about Labour plopping this one back on the table is that they have demonstrated which side they will take.

It's definitely triggered the legal minutae obsessives off. I imagine flailing around down this rabbit hole gets them off the biology and chromosomes for five minutes. Labour must have chucked out this bit of meat to give them a break but all that is happening is more escalation.

<reaches for shades>

Can anyone see this explanation?

Saves scrolling

How does the 'quickie' divorce work where there are children or complex finances to agree and one party is being particularly hostile in terms of how to remedy these? Do the courts fast track these so they are all completed within @Coriolise's timeline? Or maybe Labour is proposing this?

Trans identifying people get the GRA process changed because they say it's too onerous for them, but according to Coriolise we trans widows need to prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that we absolutely need something. What a double standard.

“They were affected before the no fault 26 week divorce path was created.
Their experiences can now be avoided.”

So you’ll use that argument to campaign for the GRA to be abolished then. There was no same sex marriage back then, now there is. There’s no need for a GRC to allow two males to marry. It can be abolished.

“But all this endless wittering and hairsplitting and sealawyering to spin things against women is a very good demonstration of why this needs to be removed from anyone's hands at all where they can spill their anti-woman punishment agenda all over it to show how very right on they are.”

anti-woman punishment agenda = nail / head.

That’s not saying that you are homophobic if you don’t want to be in a same sex marriage. You are deliberately conflating an issue of what it says in documents (on paper) versus de facto reality.

Quoting the answer given above. It is homophobic to not want same sex divorce papers apparently.

So it seems it's going too far to call spouses homophobic directly but you can say it's homophobic to be against the words on paper.

Literal trainspotters.

No it doesn’t. The two are not mutually inclusive.
The spousal exit clause and self ID are mutually exclusive. You do know that just because you say something doesn't automatically make it true don't you?

How can a transitioner self ID if his spouse has an (even temporary) say over whether a GRC is awarded? It's not self ID if anybody else's opinion is involved.

That's why Belcher and gang invented the myth of the spousal veto in the first place.

It is homophobic to not want same sex divorce papers apparently.
Wanting divorce papers to reflect the reality that you signed up to and that you recognise, is not homophobic.

Am I homophobic then for divorcing my ex under the name he married me with?

Thanks for this

That doesn’t make it any better. If I divorced dh I should determine whether it’s same sex or not.

If the law doesn’t allow that I hope we change it.

Women don’t need to continually pander to men.

It never happened

And if it did, no-one noticed

And if they did, it was in a different universe

It's one of the anti consent arguments. You are homophobic for not being happy with same sex divorce papers.

It's bad apparently to conflate what's on paper with reality.

They obviously want to smear the current process with bigotry but hold back on smearing spouses with bigotry as that didn't play well, so we get this paperwork distinction.

Paperwork being fair game when it's not a transitioners essential paperwork. Then the words on it are life and death and calling a man a woman not at all home!

Another genderist contradiction.

So any spouse would have that 26 weeks times 4 to get a no fault divorce done if their homophobia meant they couldn’t stand to have been in a same sex marriage on paper.

That is not calling paperwork homophobic. That is calling spouses homophobic. Spouses are the subject in that sentence written by Corialise - 'their homobobia' and 'they couldn't stand to have been' ... It's in black and white.

“I see you.”

Everyone on here saw the post linking someone not wanting to be in an “on paper” same sex marriage with homophobia. The repeat quote of that post is just a few posts above your “I see you” post.

“Typical MN tactic really, can’t discuss anything with logic or facts so you fabricate an ad hominem attack.” Interestingly, sweeping generalisations and ad hominens, along the lines of this one, have been a regular feature in the repertoire of TRA/MRA visitors to FWR down the years.