Why should self ID be "easy" or "easier"?

[BreadInCaptivity]

In day to day life we regularly go through bureaucratic hoops.

From providing proof of who we are (with witnesses) to get a passport, apply for free bus pass as a pensioner, claiming benefits such as PIP or getting multiple medical evaluations over a number procedures. All processes designed to ensure we are not falsifying our need/identity.

All the above arguably have no impact to anyone else in society.

Yet why we come to self id the only concern I hear is about the trauma of the process (that frankly does not seem that onerous) for which the outcome enables a person to impact the lives of others through fraudulently falsifying their sex through documentation.

Aside from the obvious as to why should this be allowed at all, why should this process be easy/easier?

It shouldn’t. If anything we should not be pandering to an impossible fiction.

Obviously it shouldn’t be. We all know that. You’re right - should the process exist at all.

Because so many people have made a very big deal of it being so traumatic and invalidating and upsetting.

It's performative victimhood, being used to manipulate. Quite hard for a politician to say: 'no, the process is reasonable,' without looking heartless and meeting wails and cries and dark threats of how people will be plunged into turmoil and suffering and forced to self harm.

They have to pretend to care.

And then they have to pretend to agree there is a valid reason for the tantrums. So they have to say the processes are 'onerous'.

The Tories handled the last attempt by slashing the fee to £5 but holding firm on some gatekeeping.

To prove they are KINDER than the Tories, Labour are forced into the position they have to erode gatekeeping further.

This isn't kinder to women, of course, but hey, who cares. It's knee jerk performance politicking.

It really shouldn't and why on earth the western world has taken leave of all sense for this one issue I will never understand. In what other scenario do people get to demand that everyone must turn a blind eye to the truth and gp along with this embarrassing charade. Sick to death of it.

What is the point in this process being even a little bit complex, when it only needs to establish one 'fact', which only the applicant knows anyway?

Q Do you have a gender identity that's incongruent with your body (no, you can't be non-binary)?

A Yes

Q Are you sure?

A Yes

Q Are you really really sure?

A Yes

Congratulations, here is your certificate.

It's completely trivial, harmful only because of what it entitles the holder to. If we could fix it so they don't get to falsify their personal data, and insert themselves where they're not wanted, I'd be more than happy for them to have a massive fuck-off certificate covered in gold leaf and with a bespoke polished oak frame.

But not if you can alter important, official historical documents like your birth certificate.
That seems wrong on so many levels. And it's not all about you.
I'd be ok with people getting an amended birth certificate to sit alongside the official one, if they have a GRC. But that's it.
And convicted sex offenders should definitely not be allowed to hide their crimes via a new, false identity.

Well yes, that's what I'm getting at with 'don't falsify personal data'. I'd suggest just add a 'T' to everything. It will be helpful to anyone who has to deal with them and stop their previous history from being obliterated.

It should be impossible, not easy or easier.

Identify however you wish but doing so as the opposite sex should not have any legal status.

Well this is my position also.

I'm just baffled as to why there appears to be any justification for this at all.

Any such "justification" is incredibly weak non existent especially in light of the wider societal impact.

Even for the person in question, having their sex incorrectly recorded could have serious medical implications.

Because men are in charge. It benefits men. So men have made it so. Fck women. Same old same old. We thought women’s rights had progressed. We were wrong.

Transsexuals campaigned for thirty years for the GRC, and no government is going to take it away from them, because the optics would be horrible.

Our only hope is to make the GRC symbolic but powerless. Reinstate data transparency and integrity, and true single-sex spaces.

The one thing it can do is confer formal 'trans' status on the holder, which has its uses. It tells a doctor this person might have had drugs or surgery. And it explains to the confused border guard why someone who might very well pass as a lady, in the dusk with the light behind her, has an 'M' in their passport.

It's going to be a long old haul, isn't it?

It shouldn't be easier, in fact it should be harder as it is such a fundamental change and has far reaching impact.

As a PP mentioned, there was lots of campaigning, that campaigning is still ongoing to make it easier, though as OP, it doesn't seem that onerous to me. I think current GRCs could be symbolic (or done away with really) and the GRA should be repealed.

This is from earlier this year. I tried to comment on it at the time in relation to single-sex spaces but couldn't see anywhere to do it.

"...Transgender people in the UK do not need the certificate to access women’s services or single-sex spaces, or to change the gender on their passport or driving licence.

The process of getting a GRC in the UK has been described by campaigners as intrusive and over-complicated. Danielle found the system had a lot of unnecessary hurdles and has called for a complete overhaul....

She said: “When I got the letter of diagnosis, I applied. I had to have two medical letters, two years worth of evidence that I am living as I say I am, like utility bills and wage slips. I had to get a statutory declaration witnessed by a solicitor, saying that the transition would be for life. That was in person.”

After submitting her case, Danielle was hopeful but sceptical of the outcome. She said: “I know Gender Recognition Certificates have been rejected for the most ridiculous reasons. I knew there would be a long wait. If there’s one thing transitioning teaches you is that there’s lots of waiting.”
The outcome of Gender Recognition Certificates are decided by the Gender Recognition Panel, part of the HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

In August, Danielle heard her application was refused as her diagnosis letter wasn’t signed off by the right kind of practitioner. She added: “If a doctor psychologist from an NHS gender clinic isn’t the right type of practitioner then I don’t know who is. I went back to the gender clinic and told them what had happened. The letter was then co-signed by the lead clinician, who I have never met.”
The application was resubmitted and Danielle was notified a hearing was to take place on January 12. Three days later, she found out that it had been accepted and her GRC would be posted in the next 20 days.
She said: “I didn’t trust the system at all. After the anticipation and the frustration, I just wanted it in my hands. On the date it arrived, it was just a relief.”
She said the certificate makes ‘zero difference’ to her day-to-day life: “It doesn’t change who I am. I already know who I am, I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that.

“My biggest fear was that I would die and the death would be registered as male. A lot of people say who cares when you’re dead? It matters to me, and while I’m living I can control it. I can’t control it once I’m gone. That’s the biggest reason I really wanted this. As I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding any time soon!...."

I think current GRCs could be symbolic (or done away with really) and the GRA should be repealed.

I agree the GRA is not really needed now that we have tax and pensions equality and same-sex marriage.

"...Transgender people in the UK do not need the certificate to access women’s services or single-sex spaces, or to change the gender on their passport or driving licence.

This. This is why the GRC is not quite as important as you would think.

It does however also have the effect of messing up the legal definition of words like 'woman', which I would like to see sorted.

“Danielle” had best pray they never need to claim disability benefits if they reckon getting a GRC was difficult &/or intrusive 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

Well, one silver lining is that if they make it easier I'm going to identify as trans. So is DH.

Quite a few in work perks and awards it seems, so fuck it, we'll join in. Not like we have to change or 'prove' anything.

What struck me, when the GRA consultation occurred in 2018 was that, on the face of it, it should have been the perfect, easy win for the Conservatives.

Gatekeeping GRA costs the government money. Bringing in self-ID removes that cost.
Medical services cost the government money. They are paying doctors to diagnose these people. Self-ID removes the requirement for medical diagnosis, thus removing another cost.
And further, if self-ID is available and there’s no need for medical intervention, it becomes easier to argue that medical intervention is not required for transitioning, thus the NHS might have been manoeuvred away from providing treatment in the longer term.

And all that, while signaling their virtue in giving what was understood to be a marginalized group rights.

I think it was only when women like us wrote to their MPs in huge numbers, that the Tories began to realise this might not be the cost-free virtue signal they thought it was.

I've been asking myself this question since Labour realised this was their get out of jail card. The only reason Labour have done this is because they can't do a full self-id due to the backlash. This doesn't mean they don't want self-id, they just can't take that political risk.

I believe gaining a GRC (If we must have one) should be thorough and should also help those seeking a GRC to understand the seriousness of their undertaking (they do in most cases). We need to solve the issue around those without GRC's telling us we would need to search them in order to know if they'd had full surgery. I know we know, but they're under the illusion that we can't tell

We need to solve the issue around those without GRC's telling us we would need to search them in order to know if they'd had full surgery. I know we know, but they're under the illusion that we can't tell

I’m not convinced many actually believe we cannot tell. I think that’s another useful lie. The insulting suggestion that we want some kind of genital police (and from there that we are obsessed with genitalia) is a distraction from the reality that they could simply choose to stay out, when they have been told about the distress they are causing women.

The reality is, that almost all men who insist on using women’s spaces, even after they find out that it distresses women, are outright predatory men. They are using distraction tactics (ironically, accusing us of what they themselves find arousing) to retain their victim status.

Nobody has ever really policed most single sex spaces. They have always been self-selecting. The problem we have to overcome is the current rhetoric which tells women and both decent and predatory men that invading women’s toilets and changing rooms is now socially acceptable. The women and decent men are then much less likely to intervene when they see something they would have accepted as suspicious before.

It shouldn't. But it will make it easier for men to access women's spaces

Of course it will. It’s all about messages being sent about what is socially acceptable and what isn’t. Self-ID is the ultimate government message to predatory men (of all stripes) that they can enter women’s spaces with impunity.

@BreadInCaptivity
Thanks for the thread. Should you change "self-ID" in the title to "obtaining a GRC", perhaps?

It will also enable TRAs to further gaslight us with that specious difference between legal recognition and true biology: "She's legally a woman. That means she's a woman."

Agree

Yes, also the GRC process only has to be done once whereas disabled people have to keep proving that they're still disabled. I'm not unusual for being disabled but not bothering to go through the far more onerous and demeaning PIP process. People who want a GRC have it so much easier than us disabled people.