The Times: Labour plans to simplify ‘dehumanising’ gender change process

[ResisterRex]

Read it and weep, vipers

"Labour will make it easier to change gender and is considering allowing a single family doctor to sign off on the decision under plans to “simplify” the process.

The party is considering how to make the legally binding certificate easier to obtain while still having guardrails to prevent mirroring controversial ­proposals in Scotland that would have ­removed doctors from the process ­altogether.

The plans include ditching a panel of doctors and lawyers that approve ­gender recognition certificates, the document allowing transgender people to have their affirmed gender legally recognised, and only requiring one doctor to be involved in the process.

The Times understands that one option under consideration is that the doctor could be a GP. Labour would ­also ­remove the ability of a spouse to object to the change. A source said the party wanted to make the process “less medicalised” but added that the plans would retain the involvement of a doctor and would not allow people to self-identify in order to obtain legal changes.

They said it had not yet been decided whether the medical professional would be a GP or a gender specialist, with the issue likely to go to consultation if the party wins the next election.

The discussions centre on concerns that if the single doctor was a specialist, a GP would still need to make the ­referral, therefore retaining the two-step process that Labour wants to drop."

Labour plans to simplify ‘dehumanising’ gender change process

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/604c739c-70b7-4819-866f-370ae67da6ab?shareToken=2a1dede2a48c5ec7388167f16bdd6cbb

The invested called it "spousal veto", to make it seem like a horrid nasty thing a woman was doing to her poor husband who just wants to be his authentic self.

Would anyone make a gay man stay married to a woman, if he realised he was gay? No. Then why have this which forces a woman to stay married to an AGP?

It's because this is a men's rights movement, whose aim is to remove all boundaries and safeguarding. Labour started this aim with the GRA. They're setting out to finish that job.

They don't know themselves......they are just assembling words that make it sound as if they know what they are doing.

Exactly

Quoting myself because it's too late to edit. It is a right to annul the marriage. Apologies to all.

@EasternStandard @RebelliousCow you may be right. But they are obviously having policy workshops on how to expedite gender identity changes- including looking at how to bypass (or not) GPs. Why aren't they having similar round tables on how to protect single sex spaces, with similar public messaging on the challenges? Sounds like they are working on the issues raised by trans people and deliberately NOT working on the issues raised by women.

If it passes in time, the new law that determines that there has to be male and female toilets in public buildings will have to be reversed, and I assume their commitment will be to increasing 'gender neutral' facilities, so as to get around the issue of single sex spaces.

They are still dancing to the activist's tune....of totally/effectively removing 'Sex' based exemptions from legislation and replacing then with the concept of 'gender identity'. They've already accepted that some "women" are not "biological women"; that there are different 'types' of woman.

What a shit show!

a friend who lives in Oxford, and used to go to LP meetings told me that AD is under pressure from a local transwoman who controls the Labour Womens Group in the area.

I am not sure whether the semantics matter that much. Back in the day if you were divorced you couldn't remarry in a Catholic church, so you'd want your previous marriage annulled if you were determined to get married again in a Catholic church.

Otherwise would anyone really care whether they got divorced or had an annulment? They can't stop you divorcing your DH if he becomes your not so dear wife, you can get divorced for any reason. I don't really see that you could possibly be trapped in a marriage you don't want (for that reason, obviously finances are a big factor, but that's different).

I can see the timing might matter if you want everything done while the name is still male, but I guess you just have to move quickly. I don't think gender changes should have retrospective effect anyway, but that's also a different issue.

Labour has completely ceded its policy making on this issue to actvist groups, with Wes Streeting manipulating the background sound effects in a bid to fool the audience.

You got it

At least pp on here going on how Labour will be better on this issue are clearly defunct

Makes sense. So a man controlling the woman’s group.

I agree they are not trapped in the marriage but the difference between an annulment and a divorce is not just semantics to most people.

I agree. It is not semantics. One of the constant threads throughout all of this is being clear with language and terminology. Being opaque has got us where we are. We need a review and reset.

And this, right here, is why I will never vote Labour.

I agree and will not be supporting Labour until this changes.

There are so many important issues that Labour could have focused on. Disability rights - people with down syndrome have been neglected and starved to death in NHS hospitals. The environment - sewage has just been poured into Windermere. But no, this bizarre, niche issue has taken hold. It will have been bedded in long before they passed the entirely unnecessary GRA. What's the point if them?

Kerrrching 💰💰💰

Really easy money when you think about it. And with zero risk to the clinician because it’s sanctioned by the state.

Look at the Greens in Scotland on how much this can consume and wreck a party

Hopefully away from wrecking the public, women and children in particular

The GRA pretty much determines this outcome because it’s SO bad parties eat themselves hiding this basic and fundamental flaw

Yep, it would be nice if they could establish what they mean by the hyperbolic "dehumanising" and why they think the very straighforward current process fits that description.

Otherwise it's just more nonsense on stilts.

I don't know if I'm missing something but I can't see what's new here?
It just looks like a rehash of what Anneliese Dodds said last year.

What I'm still waiting for is clarification as to what Labour think the effect of getting a GRC should be - specifically whether or not they believe it should grant the owner access to a single sex space or service.

It may be that some of the idea they had changed in some way had picked up steam

I agree on where and how for GRC

When will a journalist ask? 🤔

How long have knowledgeable posters been asking

Surely this is game over for women's rights in this country.
We already have de facto self id as a man can change his sex markers on documents and most organisations, retailers and institutions behave as though a man holds a GRC because they can't/won't ask to see one.
There is no way back other than to repeal the GRA and that is clearly not going to happen under Labour's watch.
Annelise Dodds should hang her head in shame

Exactly. They'll need to spell it out at some point. Or will they just pretend that they've been perfectly clear all along. They are transparent about how they intend to make it easier but deliberately vague about exactly what rights an easy-to-obtain GRC will confer and how they intend to protect female single-sex spaces (which are not even currently protected because service users are too scared to make use of the exceptions in the Equality Act).

Must admit that was my first thought. GPs are not going to be pleased about this - it’s a huge addition of responsibility.

Looking on the brighter side at least there is still a process. TRAs won't like this one bit. They will still claim it is humiliating. It will be 18 years and above (thank goodness for that small mercy and I bet the schools are thanking their lucky stars on this). Men will still have to apply for a certificate to allow them to falsify their birth certificate and a doctor will still have to sign it off.

It's not a great situation but this is not a win for TRAs and they are not going to be thanking Labour for "making it easier". If Labour think they are going to get easy brownie points for doing this they are mistaken. They are just doing a bit more of what the Tories did a few years back by making it cheaper and putting the process online.

At this point I almost think that the GRC is just a symbolic move rather than something that will make any level of actual difference to people's lives. The trans people who think that falsifying their birth certificate will make them any happier are deluded. My birth certificate could say male and it wouldn't make a tiny jot of difference to my life. The fact is that men who say they are women will still need a special certificate to authenticate their "womanhood" and thanks to Forstater nobody in the UK will be obliged to pretend that these men are anything other than men.