High Court rules that a trans man......

[theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw]

...... cannot be denied a gender recognition certificate because he is trying to conceive, in an important win supported by Good Law Project.

https://goodlawproject.org/win-victory-in-landmark-case-on-gender-recognition/

Apologies for the source, but it's currently the only free one.

Well, why should he be? But it doesn't matter, because GRCs have basically been rendered pointless.

Someone who is actively trying to do pretty much the only thing that makes you definitely a woman and not a man is clearly not intending to live the rest of their life as a man, which is a requirement for getting a gender recognition certificate.

I agree they are basically pointless though.

Never mind, it’s ridiculous things like this that just peak more people.

Yes exactly. If you are so distressed by your sexed body that you need to surgically/legally/hormonally reject it then how are you able to have a child without traumatising yourself?

It's the polar opposite of the usual narrative that people are so desperate they will commit suicide rather then wait so affirmation is life saving treatment.

Someone who is actively trying to do pretty much the only thing that makes you definitely a woman and not a man is clearly not intending to live the rest of their life as a man, which is a requirement for getting a gender recognition certificate.

This

It is a completely illogical decision. The fact that this person can be awarded a GRC basically means they are not worth the paper they're written on. It makes a mockery of the whole concept of the certificate and by extension weakens the concept of the gender reassignment protected characteristic. I don't think that, long-term, this is the victory that the GLP thinks it is.

It's not a good thing to have a law on the statute book that makes no sense, though, is it? What does 'live as a man' mean if you can 'live as a man' but be making active plans to become pregnant and give birth and be named as 'mother' on the birth certificate? (Freddie McConnell tried and fortunately failed to get the right to be named as father in these circumstances.) Does it come down to 'I prefer having short hair, I don't wear make up and I wear trousers and flat shoes'? Because if so, that's a lot of women over the age of 50, I'd have thought. Maybe I'm male and never knew it. Must tell my husband of 40+ years to brace himself for a shock.

Is this trying to maintain the legal fiction that a man can get pregnant?

why? because you have to declare, legally swear, that you are going to live as a man.

and men don't have babies.

It is a fucking joke

Yes, but the point is -- GRCs already aren't worth the paper they're written on. So surely they can crack on.

'whether someone was living in their acquired gender was “necessarily a far more subtle and nuanced concept” than allowed for by the panel'

It's all cobblers. This nonsense has no place in the law.

But how did the couple making the baby know who had the ovaries and who had the sperm? Did they each get a wee certificate and then just basically hoped for the best?

Tbh I don’t trust any declarations of a “win” by GLP, they’re usually losses that they’ve misunderstood because they’re idiots.

They declare losses as wins, and the law as things that are not the law.

Makes sense to me. If a biological female can be a man, then so can a pregnant biological female.

The Gender Recognition Panel didn't bother to turn up. The Judge did a conscientious job. It was really sad reading, in the Judgment, about that young woman's life decisions. She is planning 'bottom surgery' 🙁.

If they want a GRC, let them have it.

I don’t understand how a legal declaration that you’re going to live as a man is remotely compatible with using your body to do the most female thing possible.

the GRA needs to be repealed, this is nonsense

Yes I think the Respondent had screwed up administratively anyway, then didn't bother to defend itself. But the Judge took the trouble to get advice and consider the question properly, so it's a proper precedent.

I think it's the correct decision based on the wording of the law.

It just shows the absurdity of the fe/male 'gender', and how nonsensical the GRA is.

To get a GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate), you must be over 18, diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and have lived in your affirmed gender for at least two years with the intention to do so permanently. You will need to submit an application with documents like a birth certificate, medical reports, and a statutory declaration to the Gender Recognition Panel.

Clearly if you're a woman wanting to be a man, than having a baby means you're lying on the GRC.

What a nonsense.

Solicitors' Journal report here: www.solicitorsjournal.com/sjarticle/w-v-gender-recognition-panel-high-court-rules-pregnancy-does-not-preclude-trans-men-from-gender-recognition?category=none

PDF of judgement here: https://W-v-Gender-Recognition-Panel.pdf

I think it is a logical decision seen in the context of the current interpretation of human rights laws.

Our human rights laws largely come from the European Convention on Human Rights, which was signed in 1953 and quite obviously doesn't say anything about trans rights.

The "human right" to change your legal gender has been retrospectively interpreted into the ECHR, which, quite frankly, is an absolute clusterfuck from a democratic point of view. On the one hand, it is necessary to read between the lines of the ECHR to a certain extent if you want to argue that it is a human right to marry your same sex partner. Otherwise you have to reconvene all the signatory countries to the ECHR and get them to agree to amend it. It's much easier to argue that something which was never contemplated in the original treaty was there in the spirit of it all along. On the other hand, this approach lacks democratic legitimacy because you are trying to force countries to comply with obligations they never actually signed up to.

The legal basis for arguing that people have a human right to change their legal gender comes from the Article 8 rights to a private and family life. If the established position is now that people have a human right to change their legal gender, people who have done this must have all the same human rights as people who have not changed their legal gender. This includes the right to have a family.

If you consider that changing your gender is a human right, it makes sense that such a right should not be conditional on having any particular medical interventions or agreeing not to have children. No other human rights are conditioned in this way.

But the direction of travel with all of these decisions is essentially that:

1. Changing your gender is a human right.
2. People who wish to change their gender cannot be required to do or not do anything which would prevent them from exercising their other human rights.
3. Essentially, trans people should be able to do whatever the hell they like and to even question their logic is inherently transphobic.

At some point I think it has to get to the point where everyone sees how ridiculous it is. And then the pendulum needs to swing back to, "people have the right to change their gender but only in situations where it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights".

And that's when a gender recognition certificate truly becomes a worthless piece of paper.

Sorry, the journal article is subscription only. Didn't check first.

Yeah that makes logical sense, but you're forgetting the circular logic that now applies.
A "man" can give birth in this Brave New World.
Thus this pregnant female IS living as a "man"

https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/w-v-gender-recognition-panel/

Link to judgement here, as I didn't want to take GLPs spin as gospel.

It seems like this is a good thing? There's a higher principle here which is that the state cannot practice eugenics - the right to have children is a core human right and empowering the state to decide whether people are allowed to have children has led to many horrific violations in history. It's in everyone's interest to uphold this principle. If it makes a nonsense of a downstream law then that's to be handled in the nonsense legislation. We shouldn't undo the principle of the right to reproduce.

The Judge extrapolated from Garçon and Nicot v France - Article 3 violation to expect destruction of fertility in return for acquired gender recognition.