What's the point of a GRC?

[ellyoctober]

I'm a big lurker in FWR and have learnt a lot thank you wonderful sisters.

I'm afraid I find it hard to retain knowledge and critically think. Menopause issues.

I've been reading article today about changing the requirements for GRC.

I am absolutely against any male in women's spaces, sports, awards.

What value does a GRC hold, why is Keir mentioning it? If one can't ask to see it, and passport with altered sex marker is one key to getting it, then what's the point of it? An altered passport is more useful, surely?

And Im aware thar the Equalities Act give exceptions to even those with a GRC.

I see to recall it was introduced because of changes to same sex marriage but I can't remember the intricacies of it.

Apologies but could someone break it down?

It's used to get a falsified birth certificate stating the incorrect sex for a person.

For passport and driving licence all you need now is a doctor's letter.

Basically once you have the GRC you are considered a woman legally for most purposes.

Prior to marriage equality legislation it provided a work around for same sex people to marry.

That is no longer needed.

The other thing a GRC has done, assisted by orgs like Stonewall, is make organisations and service providers believe women and girls were no longer allowed female only spaces, sports or care.

If Labour are serious about women and girls being allowed female only spaces, sports and care then there is no point to a certificate that states someone's gender identity in practical terms.

The fact Labour still seem very keen to issue them and make them easier to get makes me think they are not very serious about enforcing single sex spaces because if they were this just makes their job harder.

As does continuing to allow people to alter their birth certificates, passports and driving licences.

E.g It's much harder for a minimum wage receptionist at a gym to feel they can prevent a man going into the female changing room when he has a legal certificate or an altered passport/drivers licence saying his sex is female.

If Labour thought critically about this for half a second they'd understand that. Of course they may perfectly understand and don't really care.

I just find it mind blowing that this fiction can change someone’s actual birth certificate.

A legal document recording the birth of a human being. A historical document really. Based on reality. But changed on the whim of some innate gender woo ‘feeling’.

Precisely this. It would never have happened if there had been a genuine public debate at the time.

It's scary.

If one can't ask to see it,

I think you can ask, but they do not have to produce it

Same. What on earth were Labour thinking in 2004

The damage is still growing year on year

We don’t do it for other dysphoria type conditions

This is the next big question that needs to be posed to the incoming government.....What exactly is the purpose of a GRC - if not to be able to access spaces and services designed for those of the sex you wish to identify with?

Would that mean, for example, that a man with a passport which declares 'female' should to be searched by a female member of staff at airport security if the need arose? What sorts of opportunities and/or differences would having a GRC imply for the holder?

If a GRC does not act as some kind of passport in itself - what is its purpose?

It's a shiny ✨️

It's to facilitate the deception of individuals who wish to deny their biological sex.

What I find odd is once a person is granted a GRC they can then get a new birth certificate with the sex altered to match their chosen gender. But what about their original name given at birth? That cannot be altered? So we'll have lots of birth certificates with male names but female sex? What a mess.

Thank you there's some excellent articulate responses there.

You've just all reinforced my thoughts that it's irrelevant and unnecessary.

Needs to be consigned to the wrong side of history.

I don't think the same sex marriage issue is all of the story. There was a European Court of Human Rights decision and from memory it involved more than just that.

The GRC as enacted in UK law did go beyond what was required at the time by the court decision; but there is a legal requirement to allow something like it in some cases.

Wasn't there a similar decision about allowing people in prison to vote, that was obviously ignored. There were no obviously repercussions, which suggests that this could have been ignored too.

so that some deluded blokes can prove the earth is flat, because this piece of paper says so.

You appear to be correct. Labour delayed things with consultations over the prisoners voting issue; and then the Conservatives/Lib Dems put it to Parliament which rejected it. I guess the Conservatives have just taken a "fuck you we aren't doing it" attitude after that.

I would love to see them doing the same with the GRC, but I doubt we see that from either the Conservatives or Labour.

You can change the name on your birth certificate with a grc

GRCs should be important as it is only once one obtains a GRC that one's legal sex changes.

Prior to obtaining a GRC, someone who is transitioning or intending to transition will have protection under the Equality Act 2010 so that e.g. they are not fired for announcing their intention to transition. But they should not at that point have a legal right to be treated as if they were the other sex.

We seem to have slipped into a position where service providers assume that any trans service user will have a GRC (i.e. de facto self-ID), but employers should still know whether an employee has a GRC.

Croft v Royal Mail was a pre-GRA case which concerned toilet use at work during transition. The Court of Appeal endorsed the employer's decision that a transwoman should use the disabled toilet during the period of their transition, but held there would come a point where the transition would be considered complete and they would need to be allowed to use the women's bathroom. Although this was pre-GRA, many consider that the turning point envisaged in Croft is now the granting of a GRC (especially following comments about the Croft case in the post-GRA case of Green)

Of course, we have seen employers like the NHS ignoring this and allowing men to self-identify into women's changing rooms immediately, which IMO is clearly wrong.

Holding a GRC also alters how one seen for the purposes of the Equality Act. In R (Green) v SSfJ it was held that a transitioning transwoman prisoner without a GRC had not been unfairly discriminated against in being denied wigs/tights etc. because he was not being treated worse than the other male prisoners. He could not compare his treatment to female prisoners as he had no GRC so was not (yet) female.

So they should matter a great deal, but with the law being applied so badly at the moment it's not surprising why so few people seek a GRC.

Thanks Spannasaurus. I'm amazed at how a birth cert can be altered in this way! Rewriting history.

It's all such a mess.

What is the point of sex/gender markers on official documents? (Not goading, just genuinely trying to think it through.) Does it matter if a driving licence does not specify sex? What is the relevance in the context of having permission to drive? Possibly in some countries the sex on your passport is more important than others, but passports are also used by employers to verify right to work (and presumably also sex. If data on female vs male births is held somewhere, and NHS records our sex, does it need to be displayed on official docs?