Should the Gender Recognition Act be repealed?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Basically, it's a lie and the government should not be in the business of falsifying official documents.

But on top of that:

• It reduces trust
• it perverts stats and analysis
• it reduces protections based upon sex
• People start to think sex really is changeable, or worse, just a piece of paper, when it's not, it's binary and immutable
• All sorts of issues in the NHS with sex based healthcare

The EHRC guidance ties itself in knots trying to deal with the fact we don't reliably record sex, the most basic of information.

A humane society can treat people with courtesy without falsifying reality. Trans people should not be treated differently to others, they should have every right to an existence free from abuse. But these legal fictions are no good for anyone.

You cannot become female at the stroke of a pen.

Wasn't there a situation where a baby was registered as the wrong sex and the parent(s) were unable to change it to the correct sex? I have no links it's just something I recall reading somewhere. Maybe it wasn't true!

If true, and I'm not sure about that, then how can a trans person change THEIR birth certificate? Maybe as said by pp, the underlying register doesn't change, just the certificate. And maybe that's also what happened with the baby mentioned. If true.

I do think that privacy was a reason, but even if it were possible to alter one’s physical appearance to completely pass as the opposite sex, the privacy part raises huge ethical questions about telling sexual partners your actual sex. Is there a legal obligation to do this ?

@fantam yes, you’re thinking of the thing from November 2024 with the little girl accidentLly recorded as male and it was a solid computer says no

I did some digging and now know a lot about the General Record Office and requesting certificates and how amendments happen - it seems that they stick in marginalia if changes are made (eg paternity test results - presumably this erroneous sex)

it is quite different for a new birth certificate coming from a gender recognition. The old (true) record remains in perpetuity , and instead there is a register of Gender recognition certificates and the new birth certificates come from there (and link back to the official birth records as well.

This strangely makes me feel a bit better about the whole process, as one of my reservations had been the notion of rewriting history and denying reality for the sake of vanity.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/19/baby-girl-registered-wrong-sex-mansfield-registration-office

Hilarious that one poster there attributed the GRA to the Conservatives, how embarrassing not even being aware of when and under which Government it was enacted. Facts and knowledge not their strong suit as is eveident in their knowledge on the Legal/Court system and why JM and his GLP find it so easy to fleece them.

I have always wondered where Goodwin's children featured in the thinking of the ECHR.

Was nobody supposed to know of their existence?

I think it's stupid legislation and it stupid law should be binned. It does't have a real purpose.

Although I understand the argument about Europe, I actually don't care and think that there is no reason the UK should care about what they think either.

This is heartening. It means there is somewhere for data integrity to come back from.

Of course it should.
Gender is absolute nonsense, and the fact that birth certificates and medical records can change the sex of a person is insane.

It is pretty pointless having a certificate that lies about your sex that you can't use because to show it means everyone knows you are lying. That nobody can ask to see due to privacy.

Brilliant lawmaking guys.

The point of the certificate is that it can be used to obtain a new birth certificate showing incorrect information, which can be shown if asked for.

Haha that thread is hilarious.

And this practice should be barred.

Absolutely it’s absolutely insane and it all comes back to this completely unfounded and unsound idea that anybody can pass. For one if they did pass you wouldn’t need a certificate but for another they don’t pass and so waving a certificate that says you’re actually a lady when you’re clearly 6 foot four and built like a rugby player is even more outing.

Shed sums this batshittery up perfectly!

It could not be funnier look at this quote

”You're talking to people whom aren't interested in evidence and facts though.
To them we are just "men in dresses"”

Totally agree - and if not then where is the race recognition act, the age recognition act, whatever else imutable trait recognition act. Its an utter farce driven primarily by male sexual privilege, should be in the bin.

The GLP DOES fleece them all the time

this comment says I’m an abuser as well (refering to me specifically). All about the genitals apparently.

“I swear female TERFs think cosying up to the actual abusers will save them.
Hey, female terfs - tokens get spent.
I've not encountered a single male terf/transphobe that doesn't have major abuser/assaulter vibes. No non-threatening, non-weirdo, non-abusive man gets thatpressed about other people's gender and genitals...”

it's a harsh reality that women on T can look very much like men at first glance-until you clock their height, size of hands, walk etc. The damage T does to their bodies is awful though-and the potential dating pool then becomes extremely limited.
Men who try to dress in womens clothes just don't pass. Hence the push for children to transition before going through puberty-which we now know is very harmful. There is nothing positive at all about pretending people can change sex. Surely there should be better treatment/healthcare for a man with gender dysphoria?
GRCs only bring problems for wider society Especially women....

I was going to vote, "Yes, repeal it," but having read the discussion I think your suggestion is best.

SingleSexSpacesInSchools - they always, always, without fail bring genitals into it, don't they? Their obsession with genitals, particularly their own, is off the charts.

You're talking to people whom aren't interested in evidence and facts though.
To them we are just "men in dresses"

That comment is indeed funny. Facts, evidence, knowledge and irony are certainly not their forte.

Do I need to recognise your gender?

No.

Exactly. Utter nonsense.

Before repealing it, maybe start abiding by it ?

Alternatively, just repeal all laws that aren't obeyed for consistency.

To be very clear I have no interest in anyones genitals.

I think that line is one of the shut down arguments, just like shouting racist at those with the odd concern about the definitions of Islamaphobia for example, it's designed to shut down the debate, it's just more #NODEBATE

I think the metaphor of "no debate" being like a dam, it held back the water for a bit, but it had no release valve, so it built and built and built then the dam collapsed under the weight of feelings not spoken of.

And that applies to all of the things that are now suddenly part of political discourse, however much Labour, Green and LDs really try and pretend the debates are not happening. They are, and they cannot figure out how to deal with it because their only response was always "Ah that bigoted woman" or "thats transphobic".

No, this would not work. Goodwin was very clear about trans people’s right to privacy, and the whole point of allowing trans people to update their IDs is so they don’t have to “out” themselves every time they have to produce it, even in situations where their trans status is irrelevant.

It would also have GDPR implications as it would involve collecting extra data, and issuing organisations would have to justify why they need to collect sex + gender – this would be unlikely to survive a legal challenge as there’s no reason why, for example, the DVLA needs to know someone’s sex + gender + whether they correlate in order to issue a driver’s license. To be honest it’s questionable whether they even need to know sex, we’re just so used to being asked for this it’s never really been robustly questioned, but plenty of countries omit sex/gender information from IDs altogether.

It’s also possible that mandating ID which lists both sex and gender would not survive legal challenge from gender critical folk who don’t believe they have a gender and so would object to their ID assigning them one. Unless your proposal is only trans people would have this extra field, but this would not only be in breach of Goodwin as above, it would potentially be discriminatory to require trans people to carry a different type of ID to everyone else, would have very unfortunate connotations any non-far right government would likely baulk at (forcing a particular minority group to carry special ID that identifies them as members of that group has historically never ended well), and would be a logistical nightmare to have a to produce a different ID template for some segments of the population but not others.