Gender Recognition Act 2004

[catduckgoose]

I was reading through the debates on the GRA as recorded in Hansard, and it struck me just how similar the arguments were then to now. In fact many MPs and Lords predicted exactly the problems we'd be seeing today.

On negatively impacting our right to single-sex spaces:

There are also fundamental issues of human rights in the Bill, affecting individuals who have not themselves undergone a change of gender but may have their rights compromised by a person who has changed gender. For example, it will be possible for an individual to change their gender without undergoing an operation for a sex change. That person will then be quite within his or her rights, as we understand it, to, for example, share a prison cell, nurses' quarters or sports changing facilities with others of their chosen gender. Even though there is treatment to modify sexual characteristics, should we not consider the feelings of those with whom that person shares very private areas? Whose human rights take precedence? How does one judge in individual circumstances what is balanced and proportionate? It is very difficult for all concerned.

On how men who desire to be women disregard the needs of their family:

Let me quote from an account of the struggle faced by a family when a husband became obsessed by the idea of becoming a woman. The wife tells how selfish he became, including spending the family budget on makeup and beauty treatments for himself.

On men cheating in women's sports:

When a six foot eight inch, 22 stone lady turns up to join the hockey club and denies that she has changed gender, who can attest to the contrary? Her birth certificate will have been altered and it will be a criminal offence for anyone to reveal that fact. Just how do we proceed in that matter? It is no good saying that we can leave it to people in the sporting associations. We cannot. That is impossible.

On detransitioners:

The ruling of the European Court supports a situation in which personal feelings and beliefs are given precedence over verifiable medical evidence. In support of that are four reports, which I have read, of men who were labelled as transsexual or having a gender identity disorder, but who no longer feel that they are women, and, a few years later, function normally as men. That demonstrates that the condition of some transsexuals is not permanent or lifelong.

With a contemporaneous example:

Sadly there is plenty of evidence that people regret having a sex change. Only today my attention was drawn to a television programme broadcast in September of last year on ABC, the Australian broadcasting network. It was called "Boy Interrupted" and was about Alan Finch who, with the support of health professionals, had sex-change surgery at the age of 19. He now says, "Anatomically, I was never a woman … Everything was fake about it from top to toe"." At age 31 he decided to change back to his biological sex.

On trans identity being merely a reality-defying belief:

Transsexual people are born with a gender that fits all known scientific criteria. Just because we have a yearning to be a boy or a girl does not make it so. It is just fantasy, reminding me how we used to pretend to be gnomes or sprites in the early days in the kindergarten sandpit. I have used the word "delusion" before—I use it again. I am sure that I am not alone in questioning whether it is right to go along with transsexual people in this delusion.

And how incongruous it is to go along with it:

If a person is paranoid and believes that he is being chased by secret agents, we do not hire a 24-hour bodyguard and buy them elaborate security devices. Similarly, if a person suffers from agoraphobia, we do not brick them into their home. Yet, instead of getting them all possible psychological help, surgeons trap transsexual people in their delusion by performing sex re-assignment surgery.

Also similar was the dismissal of how vulnerable women would be affected, putting men's desires above women's needs:

A hostel, or somewhere to live, is critical at that point. It is thus essential that such an individual is not subject to the kind of discrimination whereby, because they may be presenting themselves as a woman, the person in charge at the hostel says, "I'm sorry you can't come here because really you are a man"

And another:

However, he also talked about the rights of women's discussion groups, and I do not see how that can have anything to do with religious freedom. It is on a par with discussions about who should use the ladies' toilet: it is irrelevant, and involves a complete misunderstanding of transsexualism.

Also some predictions that did not age well at all:

Let me make it clear that it will not be possible for a man simply to declare that he is of the opposite gender and then compete in women's competitions.

Yes. I never thought I would be thinking Norman Tebbit was someone who would have been speaking so much sense over women’s rights, but I admire his foresight, and that of the others who commented.

This stuff should be printed on posters and flyers. The more public attention and awareness, the better. People should know what kind of shoddy legislation was pushed through.

I am ashamed to say that, had I been aware of the passage of the Gender Recognition Bill through Parliament in 2003 and 2004 (I don't think many of us were TBH) then, because the likes of Tebbit and Ann Widdecombe were against it, my knee-jerk reaction would have been to think that it must be a good thing.

I was wondering if might have heard about the GRA if I had been paying more attention? I stopped buying The Guardian some time in the 1990's, except on Saturdays sometimes for the Crossword. It wouldn't have helped.

Google Search for time period 1 Jan 2003 - 1 Aug 2004
Search results for "gender recognition" site:www.theguardian.com

The Guardian: nothing
The Independent: nothing
The Times: nothing
The Telegraph: nothing
Daily Express: nothing
The Mirror: nothing
The Sun: nothing
Evening Standard: nothing
ITV: nothing
Channel 4: nothing
The BBC: one mention in the last paragraph of a review of the film "Boys Don't Cry"

The victims of prejudice
Chris Summers
26 Dec 2003

First and last two paragraphs:

"On 26 December 1993 a young transsexual was shot and stabbed to death in the United States in a crime which later became the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Boys Don't Cry. Ten years on, her family are still seeking justice and dozens of transsexuals continue to be murdered every year."

"Gwen Smith said many US states had now introduced legislation to combat discrimination against transsexuals - the UK is set to introduce its own Gender Recognition Bill next year.

But she said: "Changing people's attitudes is a slow process. It's an evolutionary process and it will take time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3219591.stm

How about the Daily Mail - which I would not have touched with a bargepole back then! The earliest mention is 29 Jan 2004.

Ephraim Hardcastle
29 Jan 2004
"The Government has consulted sporting bodies about its Gender Recognition Bill for transsexuals. Among them: the British Disabled Fencing Association, the English Ladies Golf Association and the British Weightlifters Association. It's possible to imagine that men who've changed into women might outperform other members of their chosen gender in disabled fencing and ladies' golf, but weightlifting?"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-229405/Odd-conclusions-Lord-Hutton.html

Widdecombe's grunt was a fair impression of a truffle porker
Quentin Letts
24 February 2004

Scathing commentary on Parliamentary proceedings in terms that would see this post deleted. First and last paragraphs:

"YOU can always spot ' em. It' s something to do with the hands, the feet and the voice. Really, it's impossible to disguise."

"Everyone is so ( properly) concerned about being kind to transsexuals that they presume any related new law, no matter how mad, must be passed."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-259590/Widdecombes-grunt-fair-impression-truffle-porker.html

Something amiss? It is if this lunacy is not halted
Jeff Powell
01 March 2004

Jeff despairs at the future of women's sport. To avoid the Ban Hammer, just first and last paragraphs again.

"TAKE heart Dwain Chambers, all is not yet lost. There may be a way back into the Olympics after all - through a loophole in a woman's dress."

"There is nothing some of these guys won't do to win a gold medal."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-230424/Something-amiss-It-lunacy-halted.html

The sexual identity free-for-all
Melanie Phillips
28 April 2004

I think I might get away with the first paragraph and then the last few but the whole thing is worth a read.

"Almost without notice by the public, an astonishing proposal to falsify sexual identity and make criminals out of people who tell the truth about it is on the way to being approved by Parliament."

"The Bishop of Winchester has been a lonely voice speaking out against it.
Yet no bishops voted on the third reading in the Lords, because they were at an official dinner instead.

Even more startling, the Synod devoted the very next day to debating issues of human sexuality - yet managed to ignore the Gender Recognition Bill, the greatest challenge ever made in this country to sexual identity.

The Government presents this Bill - which has been forced upon us by the European Court of Human Rights - as an issue of rights and privacy.

But no one has the right to expect public servants to promulgate a lie. And it is hard to imagine a more public matter than redefining what it is to be a man or woman.

More profoundly, this Bill continues the systematic attack being mounted upon all moral and social norms, to the extent of challenging what it is to be a human being.

It illustrates how our society is unravelling through the substitution of irrational feelings for demonstrable facts. For the arguments behind this Bill are no more reasonable than saying that, if someone believed sincerely they were a chicken, they should have a birth certificate declaring they had been born a chicken.

The general silence and acquiescence in the face of this are simply astonishing. It's as if the nation is anaesthetised.

The outcome will be a sexual identity free-for-all and a further descent into a moral vacuum."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-259516/The-sexual-identity-free-all.html

That's it for the Daily Mail until the next article in 2010!

Maybe the Editor, Paul Dacre, lost interest once the GRA had passed into law? Interesting section "New Labour Years" on Dacre's Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dacre#New_Labour_years

There were some very big stories in 2003 and 2004, but still. Just four mentions in MSM? The Daily Mail covering most of the key issues that concern us today.

Not children. Nobody in their wildest dreams imagined that children other than the children of transsexuals would be impacted.

I had to remind myself, what were the headline stories month by month in 2003 and 2004?

2003 Newspapers
https://www.historic-newspapers.co.uk/old-newspapers/2003-newspapers/?source=webgains&siteid=37090

2004 Newspapers
https://www.historic-newspapers.co.uk/old-newspapers/2004-newspapers/

Press For Change were quick off the mark to capitalise on the passing of the GRA. By May 2005 they (Whittle and Burns) had got the agreement of the Press Complaints Commission that, for example, "gender" would always be used in the press instead of "sex". And much more besides.

From the archived Press For Change website:

• pfc.org.uk/files/Transsexual_People_and_the_Press.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Transsexual People and the Press - Detailed dossier with examples of bad practice and recommendations for the Press Complaints Commission and Editors. Led to change in the PCC Editors’ Code in May 2005
• pfc.org.uk/files/PCC_Code_Change_Press_Release.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Press Release by the Editors’ Code Committee - The announcement of specific protection for trans people within the press industry’s code of practice, announced by the committee headed by News International Executive Chairman, Leslie Hinton. May 2005
• www.pcc.org.uk/cop/practice.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The PCC Code of Practice Aug 2007

Twenty years since the GRA. It was never about enabling same-sex marriage for a tiny subset of homosexuals. We don't need to speculate. Press For Change was not just a phenomenally diligent, well organised and effective campaign group. They documented everything and archived it for posterity.

They have got almost everything they wanted, through policy capture after the initial foot-in-the-door of the GRA. I wonder if they have also got more than they wished and bargained for?

All those respectable country-club transsexuals: academics, engineers, military veterans and captains of industry, all sidelined by drag queens, sissy-porn cross-dressers, transmaxxers, young adults with crumbling spines and splintered limbs staggering around on crutches, hordes of pubescent autistic girls in the USA having their breasts sliced off, non-binaries getting nullification surgery, the rocketing number of detransitioners and "sex-change regretters" and WPATH deciding that "eunuch" is a gender identity.

Actually, I don't think they care as long as they get what they want. They will gather them all on under the "transgender umbrella" to swell the numbers, to bolster the claim that they've "always been here", that kids are born trans but some of them happen to fall by the wayside on their "gender journey". They know full well that they are confused, vulnerable, traumatised and being exploited for profit. They don't give a damn about the price being paid by others, including children, as long as they get what they want.

Twenty years since the GRA. It was never about enabling same-sex marriage for a tiny subset of homosexuals.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 was passed just a few months later - to much more of a fanfare. I think the timing and the press coverage is telling.

Let me make it clear that it will not be possible for a man simply to declare that he is of the opposite gender and then compete in women's competitions.

Interesting thread, it’s a shame all the predictions were overridden, but this stands out

Thank you. What an interesting thread. I see that, even back in the mists of time, it was the Mail that wasn’t afraid to wade in and point out what so many are still pretending not to see.

And Press for Change were undoubtedly pushing as fast as they could, as quietly as possible, because that was much easier than the impossible job of persuading the public, as lesbian and gay activists had done.

I heard about this on BBC radio 4 at the time, so it was on the BBC. I don’t know about the press as I didn’t read newspapers.

Glad to say I was immediately against the GRA as soon as I heard about it. It seemed not the best thing to help the men who thought they were women (at that time it was predominantly men, I hadn’t ever heard of women wanting to be men), insulting to women because it defined womanhood by stereotypes and meant that men were deciding the meaning of womanhood, I thought that the falsifying of official documents such as birth certificates and passports every kind of wrong, I said that men could cheat at sports by pretending to be women, my partner said that will never happen because men would be ashamed of doing that, he also thought I was being cruel to men who were suffering unbearably.

The rebuttals to those fears which turned out to be the case would be interesting to see

Who overrode those statements and how

This is such an interesting thread. There's a Twitter account which has now been locked down, which had some of this on as well so I'm glad this thread has appeared.

Would there be any way to find out if this is true? And if so, how can anyone be held to account?

x.com/sarahstuartxx/status/1307400102118592512?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Thank you @catduckgoose for this excellent piece of research. I am looking for information on why the GRA went further than it needed to. I know it had to be introduced after a ECHR ruling about transsexuals needing to be able to change documents after "sex change surgery". But does anyone have info as to why UK went further and allowed GRCs with no medical intervention? Was it due to Press for Change or other trans activist campaign groups?

@catduckgoose do you know who influenced the GRA?

Very interesting.

I think we were enthralled to America in 90s and early 00s. DM has always been critical of wokeism ans she says that it originates in American universities. I think she has a point if we are talking about the trans movement.

Just read this quick summary.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/

I can’t believe how naive the ECHR were. Why did they think falsification of documents would not cause problems? They clearly didn’t consider that being “trans” would be anything other than an extremely rare condition.
I’d love to know how we can repeal the GRA, it’s a nonsense law.

The GRA should be repealed. No more GRCs should be issued. This whole ideology needs to go. It’s harmful to everyone it touches but so is hardcore porn & that’s easily available on every child smartphone…..average age boys first see it around 7-its so damaging

I've found the info I was still looking for on the excellent website by Still Tish. As I suspected the GRA was completely influenced by Trans Activists & Transvestites-

Beaumont Society
GIRES
Press for Change
Norther Concord
Change
The only other org consulted was the BMA.

No women's groups were consulted. From what I can see the public were not consulted and from your evidence about lack of reporting few would have even been aware. At the time if I had been aware of it I think I, like the government, would have assumed it covered transsexuals and I'd have had a picture in my head of Nadia from Big Brother (winner in 2004) or the character from The Crying Game.

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2022/03/05/gra-transsexual-working-group/

Edited to add link to website by STILLTish (X name, not sure if she's on here as that)

Fascinating thread - thanks! I agree, more noise needs to be made about the fact that everything was predicted.

Following on from @ResisterRex post above (link to X post about Stephen Wittle meeting with Geoffrey Filkin prior to the debate on GRA and telling him to disregard the 184,000 postcards from Catholics (so I guess they must have been included in the consultation) in favour of input from 1000 trans identified people (because of what we would now call "lived experience) here is the link to Filkin's contribution to the GRA debate

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2003-12-18/debates/1bacc5de-e32f-4556-8cb3-0ca85c51fc63/GenderRecognitionBillHl

Was it Whittle who gave the infamous quote about the success of getting the GRA in under the radar without much scrunity or press reporting?

That would be a trans success - as in not actually a real success, but might seem like one briefly until people stop to look, at which point it becomes clear it is actually a failure, always was a failure and can only ever be a failure. And another course of action would have led to a happier and healthier outcome.

" The Gender Recognition Bill continues the process of "bringing rights home". The Bill provides transsexual people with the opportunity to gain the rights and responsibilities appropriate to the gender in which they are now living. Transsexual people, at present, live in a state of limbo. Their birth gender determines their legal status, even though they may have lived fully in the opposite gender for many years."

Reasons he is in support =

Insurance a person who is now living as a woman may take out motor insurance in her new name. That would seem the natural thing to do. If, however, she has an accident, she risks prosecution for driving without insurance and for fraud, as her legal status is still determined by her gender at birth. She is therefore faced with little choice but to take out insurance under her previous name, in the gender to which she no longer feels she belongs. She then has to explain, every time she has to produce her insurance documents, why there is a discrepancy between those documents and the reality of how she presents to the world.

Marriage The court, in interpreting the European convention, now a part of UK law, has stated that a system for recognising transsexual people in their acquired gender must exist and that transsexual people must be granted their rights under Article 8, the right to respect for private life, and Article 12, the right to marry.

The Law Lords, in the case of Bellinger, concurred with the view that transsexual people ought to have a means of marrying in their acquired gender. Their Lordships stated that transsexual people do not have that right at present and legislation will be required to ensure that they do.

Bearing in mind at this point in the UK gay and lesbian men and women had no legal right to marry - why was there no discussion for them? It shows how homophobic our government was, that they'd rather see someone 'change sex' to give the appearance of a heterosexual couple than approve gay marriage. Filkin does talk about the Civil Partnership legislation being brought in but if there is a Human Right to Marry then why not discuss marriage for gay and lesbian people?

Batting away concerns raised about Sport:

There has been some speculation in the media over the past few days on the implications of the Bill for sport. Frankly, I have been puzzled by some of what has been said. Let me make it clear that it will not be possible for a man simply to declare that he is of the opposite gender and then compete in women's competitions. A person seeking recognition in the acquired gender will have to apply to the panel, and a gender recognition certificate would be issued only if the panel were satisfied that all the criteria were met.

So he avoids actually addressing men in women's sport if they have a GRC, and of course the confusion caused by a GRC being a completely private thing that no one can ask to see and how this has led us to where we are now with de-facto Self ID.

GRC Privacy to save embarrassment to transsexual people - The Government do not accept that all people need to know whether a person who has recognition in the acquired gender used to be of another gender. The relevance of that intensely personal fact is questionable, and the distress or embarrassment that a transsexual person may suffer at its disclosure is considerable.

Obviously the government too seem to be under the impression that no-one can tell otherwise which is in complete contrast to Filkin stating in the same speech that it should not depend on looks or steps taken but on a genuine desire to live as the opposite sex.

An application for recognition in the acquired gender will be considered according to four criteria. The person must have or have had a gender dysphoria, the recognised medical condition that drives a transsexual person to live in the opposite gender; must have lived in the acquired gender throughout the preceding two years; must intend to continue to do so until death; and must comply with the evidence requirements under Clause 3. The criteria are designed to establish whether a person has taken decisive steps to live fully and permanently in their acquired gender. That must be the test for legal recognition in the acquired gender, not whether the person's physiology fully conforms to the acquired gender, nor whether the person "looks the part".

Other politicians in support of the Act had also been approached previously by Press for Change:

Lord Carlile of Berriew

Getting on for 20 years ago, as a fairly young Member of another place, I was approached by a group of transsexual people who became Press For Change.

I say to those who feel uncomfortable about this proposed legislation that we are talking about a rights issue and a medical issue. When I started my involvement in these matters people used to ask me whether it was a psychological matter, a somatic matter, a psychosomatic matter or something else, as if one could pigeon-hole gender dysphoria as akin to measles (a physical illness) on the one hand or schizophrenia (a mental illness) on the other hand. After 20 years of research into this matter and a huge amount of reading, one cannot pigeon-hole this condition in any particular way. It is a whole person, whole body condition.

He brings intersex/ DSDs into the debate

I say with great respect to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester that the issue is sometimes the result of honest mistakes by medical practitioners—and we shall hear later from a very distinguished paediatrician. Sometimes the gender of a new-born baby is far from clear. Very occasionally— and every instance matters—people have been certified—mistakenly, as it turns out—as being male or female, and the full truth of their true gender has only emerged after a number of years.

And 'you can never tell'

A number of my friends and acquaintances have suffered from gender dysphoria. If I were to introduce noble Lords to many of them, they would not have a clue which were the men who had been registered at birth as girls or the women who had been registered at birth as boys. There is still a great deal of unjustified knee-jerk prejudice about the issue.

And 'it's a moral panic'

also say to the right reverend Prelate, again with great respect, that he is exaggerating enormously when he predicts that there will be an "incalculable effect", as he put it. We are not the first country to introduce legislation of this kind. Other civilised countries with a higher church attendance than ours have done so. Marriage and civil order has not fallen apart. Society has continued and, indeed, transsexual people, who have been able to benefit from the changes in the law, have been left with a far better state of mind and in a far better legal status than in our own country—at least until this legislation is passed.

A summary of the House of Commons debate on the bill in 2004 is here https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2022/03/04/gender-recognition-act-hansard-1/

This was a harmful piece of legislation which should be repealed. Politicians got it wrong.

Sadly it seems most Tory MPs thought it was a niche issue and didn't vote on it, or didn't see any point in voting because of the Labour majority; only 28% turnout from them and they voted equally for and against. The Labour MPs were whipped to vote in support of it, and had a majority in govt at the time.

https://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2004-02-23&house=commons&number=55

All the issues we're having were raised at the time, but I think politicians were convinced by the need to #BeKind to minorities

I haven't signed the petition for repeal as I'm a bit on the fence. It's a shit show which needs to be looked at that's for sure. What is the point of GRCs anyway? I'm totally against the changing of birth certificates and no-one can ask to see a GRC anyway. People can change their passports without them.

I've relieved about the Supreme Court decision and we've got a long way to go to undo this mess in the policies of so many organisations.

Good article by Sarah Phillimore

thecritic.co.uk/is-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-gender-recognition-act/