What are your thoughts on Repeal the GRA?

[EasternStandard]

I haven’t given it a huge amount of thought but a pp on another thread raised it, which I found interesting

How do you feel about it? Is it something that should be considered

Yes, it needs to be repealed. If there's a need for further legislation to protect people's right to present how they like - which I doubt - we should have that. If there are cases where things are sex-marked where they need not be (in these days of biometrics I doubt a sex field on passport or driving licence adds much) we should deal with them. But there are reasons to discriminate on the basis of sex, and there are no reasons to discriminate on the basis of an ineffable and uncheckable feeling in someone's head.

This.

It was brought in as a response to a legal case that was won on the basis of the human right to privacy - that if a person is living their life in a way that makes them indistinguishable from the opposite sex, their actual sex should be a completely private matter.

I'm sure at the time I saw that as a positive, in that I was naive enough to think that if you could erase sex, sexism won't exist. I think there are people who still think that, based on comments I've seen on X. As an old bag now, I don't think that. Sexism is much deeper rooted than that.

I also didn't see what Press for Change were lobbying so desperately for - the removal of the surgery requirement, which was explicitly not part of the original court case because the whole point was that it was designed for those who looked like the opposite sex.

I'm not saying the court win was A-OK - I think it was very poorly argued by the government, and the judges saying they were unable to think of any negative consequences to a win is distressing as well.

It's all so 50s - hiding and passing and pure sexism. Ironically it's a horseshoe issue - extremists on both sides think the GRA is outdated but for different reasons.

Repeal

It's all so 50s - hiding and passing and pure sexism. Ironically it's a horseshoe issue - extremists on both sides think the GRA is outdated but for different reasons.

Interesting background. I agree with the first part but I don’t think posters here are extremists

Not wanting a law that lies about something as fundamental as biological reality can’t be extreme.

Indoctrination and lies are beyond reason though

At least if you want to 'recognise' gender you should make some attempt to define it. "Living as a woman" is not a thing.

If you want to change your appearance so that your body 'reads' as the opposite sex, that doesn't really have anything to do with 'gender' as we use the term today. The law needs honesty and clarity at its heart, and the GRA has neither.

Well said

Yes it should be repealed.

Failing that they should amend it to define male, female and gender.

But same sex marriage wasn't available for any same sex couples at that time either.
I'm not suggesting that that didn't need to be addressed but why were this 'special' group of men given privileges that other gay couples didn't have?
It should 100% be repealed.

It has to be done. The combination of allowing men to change their most basic legal information by changing little more than their name on a few bills while making it an offense to disclose or recognise when it is suspected that someone has done it makes it a safeguarding nightmare. Deeply flawed legislation.

^^ that was in response to the pp who explained that the GRA was introduced so that transexuals could marry as marriage wasn't available for same sex couples.
I don't understand why transexuals were such a special group that marriage was made available to them via a legal lie when it was not available to other gay couples.

I think the GRA was sold to some groups because of 'poor April Ashley' - transsexuals being able to marry as their target sex was a modish cause in the mid 90s when the campaigns were made that led to the GRA. But I dont think the main aim was same sex marriage. It's hard to recapture that time but same sex marriage wasn't such a big cause at the time in progressive circles - after all that was the time when quite a grouping within Stonewall saw the idea of same sex marriage as an annoying distraction, or a way of reducing the revolutionary impact of gay liberation by making gay relationships look more hetero. After all, second wave feminists often saw the way forward as refusing to get married rather than reforming marriage.

In fact rereading that, the whole point of the GRA was not same sex marriage - the point was recognition of two men getting married as a heterosexual union.

So, basically homophobic?

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Essentially it was based on the fallacy that an old-style transsexual lived as a woman (whatever that is, did the cooking?) and passed as a woman (or at least, did their best to and, others politely appreciated their efforts and pretended not to notice) and that therefore not enabling that person to marry their male partner was outing them both. It was built around the idea that this was not a homosexual relationship, that the TW was 'really' a woman. Neither the transsexuals involved nor the law recognised the relationships involved as same sex relationships. It's a homophobic as well as misogynistic law.

It needs to be replaced with something new that does the legitimate job.

There is no need, in a democratic and fair society, for any documentation to lie.

There is absolutely a need for trans people to be allowed to carry ID that doesn't have checkout assistants smirking at your "real" name that doesn't match with how you choose to present, so changing ones name needs to be easy.

ID should have both sex and gender. Sex is generally immutable but can be left blank in the tiny minority of cases where a baby is born with ambiguous genitalia. Sex marker can only be changed with genetic evidence e.g. C.A.S. if the person wants it. No option to change it away from factually true genetic sex.

Gender marker can be by self declaration but can be left blank by anyone who doesn't have one, and can be changed whenever you like.

No one needs to be ashamed of being trans so the polite fiction that people should be able to keep their transness a secret is unnecessary. There certainly should be better protection against any genuine transphobia (nb not including "disagreeing with you on matters of philosophy" or "not wanting to get naked in front of you" as transphobia)

Stronger protections reinforcing that having Feminine under gender identity does not mean Female sex-class and services and opportunities are allowed to declare that they are reserved for females only (regardless of gender) or for feminine people only (regardless of sex) whenever there such a restriction is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim.

Calling for the GRA to be repealled will end up with the situation getting worse. We need to be on the front line of defining what it gets replaced with.

Placemarking for when we are told that repealing the GRA would mean having to leave the EHRC. This would lead to the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement which would, in turn, mean that 10,000 Irish homicidal maniacs would wreak havoc across the UK and Ireland.

As only a (small?) proportion of people identifying as trans actually have a GRC, it's clearly not going to have a huge impact if repealed.

But, as one of the blogs on the repeal site explains, the importance of the GRA is in creating de facto self-ID through mechanisms such as driving licence and passport sex marker changes, and the potential* for deception and the breakdown of safeguarding protocols.

*not generalising.

I'll also note the deeply misogynistic part where a very heavily male dominated govt and HoL decided that it was possible for another male to be 'indistinguishable' from a woman.

As far as those males were concerned anyway.

The GRA is having a disproportionately negative effect on;

• the rights of other groups
• safeguarding
• statistics (which Govt relies on for planning resources)
• identification (when we have supposedly been on amber alert for a decade)

Its a contentious issue that has created a deep, damaging division within society which is not going to heal. I'm failing to see any positives.

(edit for formatting)

Repeal the GRA

Agree with everyone above except the poster blethering about special certificates for boys and girls born with ambiguous genitals?!

Trans people I encounter are utterly unconvincing. The girl ones (he/they) are invariably desperate to pronounce their transness with badges and lanyards.

There's nothing stopping people making twits of themselves but it shouldn't have any more legal force than declaring oneself a Sloane Ranger.

Great points.

The protection of the lie causes so many issues that the balance tips immediately.

One of the reasons why I think KJK is so successful, is that her reaction to all of this is yeah but it's a lie, isn't it?

There's no answer to that, except yes.

Yes it should.

All the things that were used as arguments against it were laughed about - "of course that'll never happen!"

Well, you name it, it's happened.

It isn't a good idea to make laws that say things which aren't true. Humans don't change sex.

This is the heart of the matter.