Am I right in thinking having a GRC is now totally irrelevant?

[loveyouradvice]

I was one of those who wanted them abolished as the anachronism they are...but am I right in thinking that today's Supreme Court judgement makes them absolutely meaningless? So no longer aneed to abolish them as they are now irrelevant???

Wow!!!!

There are a few threads on this topic already, FYI :-)

But are the other threads specifically discussing GRCs?

It hadn't occurred to me about the usefulness of GRCs - perhaps they 'prove' someone is transgender and therefore eligible for protection under the transgender characteristic of the Equality Act? Although if that covers the act of 'transitioning' and not just 'having transitioned' then yes, what is the benefit of a GRC now?

Yes, there are a couple especially about this

"Is the concept of legal sex dead and buried"
And
"What does this mean for the Gender Recognition Act"

Yes, I've just seen them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5316077-is-the-concept-of-legal-sex-dead-and-burried

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5316079-what-does-this-mean-for-the-gender-recognition-act

No. Judge (and law) very clear. Trans people, with or without a grc have protections - i think this will mean that excluding them from women's spaces because they don't meet the legal definition of a woman will be challenged .

i am sure you will remember the religious couple who refused to bake a cake for a civil partnership and then when sued, claimed their actions were
protected because of religious belief. the court case found in favour of the couple requesting the service. sometimes legally protected rights conflict.

this is a complex area and i think is going to take some time to get through the detail of what this means

Disclaimer: I'm not exactly well educated on all of this. Is a grc like a civil partnership, in terms of you're a woman legally but not biologically

I don't know how you draw any of those conclusions! The whole point of the judgment is that they can be excluded from women's spaces and provisions. That's what the whole thing was about. On what grounds is someone going to challenge that?

Also, not that it's really relevant, but the bakers won that case in the end. They were allowed not to promote a message they disagreed with. Again, I fail to see the relevance.

Trans people have protection under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. That has always been the case, and what the judge was getting at in the judgement.

That doesnt leave the door open on the issue of single sex spaces, the judgement is clear on that point.

Unless i misremember, the Christian bakers won their case at the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court was asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Britain.
Lord Hodge said the central question was how the words "woman" and "sex" are defined in the legislation.
He told the court: "The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."
He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

i do not think this is over. i think, and it is only my view and prediction, that there will be cases arguing that exclusion from space is direct discrimination on them.

i apologise for not getting the final piece of the baker story and i stand corrected. however the fact that this case found for one side the the other shows how hard it is legally
to balance claims about protected characteristics where protecting a characteristic of one person means disadvantaging (in their eyes) another person with a different characteristic.

i have no strong views bar that i do not think this is over or the fight it won.

I still don't see your argument. The question went all the way up to the Supreme Court, so that it could finally be put to bed. There's not really much anyone can do if they don't like a Supreme Court ruling.

i hope you are right

i think passions run so high that they will find a
slightly different situation and take this through the courts again.

but i really hope you are right

It would have to be something that's outside the scope of the Equality Act, because that's what the Supreme Court have ruled on, however high passions may run.

I think this is still very murky while the GRA exists, because it will still be an offence for staff in the public sector to disclose someone's natal sex. "It is an offence for a person who has acquired protected information in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person."

While the GRA is in place, GRCs still have weight. A GRC still makes you legally a woman (just not legally a biological woman).

I reckon that the Government's reforms to the GRA will be dead.

Even before this they were pushing reforms that nobody was asking for

This is a good way to look at them:

If you're referring to the Asher's bakery case, the Supreme Court held in favour of the bakery.

Excluding someone from women's spaces or services because they don't meet the definition of a woman is literally the point of the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act.

There have been a few, particularly employment and prison based, provisions that were somewhat limited to GRC holders but most “single-sex” provision that allowed trans people to be treated as the opposite sex has been provided on the basis of self-ID anyway. Not many places tried to distinguish between GRC holders and non-GRC holders (my guess is because of the difficulty in doing so). So while the SC ruling will likely get rid of a lot of mixed-sex provision masquerading as single-sex, it doesn’t seem like much of what will be “lost” to trans people was provided on the basis of a GRC anyway.

It does still allow the holder to get a birth certificate in the sex of their acquired gender. This hasn’t changed. And I think that’s been its biggest benefit since gay marriage became legal and pensions were equalized. A form of validation and a way to obscure a previous identity. So I think the reasons for getting a GRC were never huge (hence so few people applying) and they really haven’t changed much.

Yes. Still the right to get a birth certificate in the opposite sex, to marry/get a civil partnership as the opposite sex, to be treated as the opposite sex for the purposes of any welfare, pension or tax laws that differentiate on sex (though I am not sure there are many anymore).

Will the welfare/tax/pension bit hold up now? If a TW with a GRC is advantaged by some female-specific provision, i.e. the provision is effectively for women without a GRC and males with a GRC... How does that sit with the Equality Act? I'm confused now!

If that is the NI case, the court case found against the person ordering the cake. Religious belief is a protected characteristic. After all, you would not ask a Jewish bakery to make a Hamas-themed cake, would you? They would be within their rights to tell you to FtheF off.

I think that particular advantage is gone because the judgement said one problem with accepting transwomen as women (and transmen as men) is that it makes two (or 3) subsets: transwomen with a GCR, transwomen without a GRC and men. Men who were not trans would be disadvantaged, which is discrimination because of (lack of) gender identity.

I don’t see the point of a GRC if you can’t ask to see it. That aspect has never made sense. I have a first aid certificate. If I’m a first aider at an event and someone asks to see my certificate I’ll show it otherwise how do they know I’m not lying. That’s the point of these pieces of paper. A certificate you keep secret is no difference to not having one. You should need a GRC to change the gender marker on any official documents including driving license and medical records and even then medical records should just show you transitioned and show biological sex for safety. Genital surgery should be required to get a GRC. Everyone else is just cross dressing which is fine but doesn’t change your sex or mean anything. It’s just clothes.

If a TW with a GRC is advantaged by some female-specific provision, i.e. the provision is effectively for women without a GRC and males with a GRC... How does that sit with the Equality Act?

IMO it does not. The GRA is incoherent law, and incompatible with both the EA2010 and normal common sense. It is now also a patently discriminatory one, as it affords some men privilege over others, based upon the possibility of some men holding a certificate. But until a man does what women have done, ie take the issue to court to force classification on its ridiculousness, nothing will change.

IMO the GRA must be retracted.

Surely the protections are the other way around?
So transmen can't be excluded from women's spaces as that would be discrimination based on gender reassignment. (But could be from sport due to drugs rules).

And for jobs where sex doesn't matter eg software engineer you still can't discriminate against trans people.