HMRC gives trans people access to VIP hotline

[HannahinHampshire]

‘HMRC gives trans people to VIP hotline’. Why do the records of transgender people require greater protection? I spent an hour waiting for HMRC to answer my call the other day and then I was cut off before I could speak to an advisor.

www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/cfbb2461a6f96ebf

Well, there is a criminal offence called ‘rape by deception’.

Attempting to conceal one’s sex in sport or for purposes of access to certain services is also dishonest and therefore morally unacceptable.

Good grief. Who created this law? Unbelievable.

I’d like to know the numbers of women who said they were men.

But in your case, I think the pigeon has more of a fighting chance.

In fact, except for special privileges in pensions, I’m struggling to think where so called ‘legal sex’ is relevant.

That's almost irrelevant today as the state pension age for men & women was equalised nearly eight years ago so only applies to someone holding a GRC who is over 72.5 years of age.

Apparently it came in stages:

First a man with his penis removed was eligible, then the ones who retained their penises complained, then the DWP made a blanket change.

I would be interested to know if any ‘transmen’ (women who identify as men) had their pension deferred to the male age or whether they managed to go under the radar.

April 2005 (Gender Recognition Act 2004): Allowed transgender people to legally change their gender. Those who obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) and had fully transitioned could claim their state pension in their acquired gender.
April 2006 (European Court of Justice Ruling): Following the case of Sarah Margaret Richards, the court ruled that denying a trans woman access to her state pension at age 60, simply because she had not undergone gender reassignment surgery prior to transitioning, was unlawful sex discrimination.
November 2011 (DWP Policy Update): Following further court judgments, the Department for Work and Pensions announced that trans people who reached age 60 before April 4, 2005, and had transitioned prior to this date, were eligible for equal treatment rights for their pension.

Yes, good point. So, the SC ruling says that even though a GRC allows the holder to obtain an inaccurate birth certificate, that is now worthless for proof of sex in relevant circumstances.

The GRA backs this up by explicitly including exceptions for primogeniture and sport so apart from providing a gaping loophole in the DBS checking where they will accept documentation that falsifies sex and breaks the link with previous names, a GRC is legally meaningless.

We have seen from the court cases where a trans person has obviously broken their pledge to permanently ‘live as’ their ‘acquired legal sex’ (getting pregnant and gestating two babies with your uterus is emphatically NOT ‘living as a man’) with no revocation of the GRC. In fact, I don’t believe there is any mechanism to revoke or reverse a GRC even if the person wants to.

This law was meaningless to start and has now been proven to be so in court many times, so repeal is the obvious solution.

Yes I can’t imagine trans men phoning up to ask to work for longer.

Goodness ‘unlawful sex discrimination’ in that 2006 case- what about discrimination against actual women! Im surprised this was passed 20 years ago.

chicken, this is literally what you said.

ElenOfTheWays asked "am I allowed to conceal the fact that I'm a woman in order to avoid misogyny and sexual harassment?".

Your answer was "Sure, if you want. You can even fully identify as a man, if you want. That's kind of the point"

I mean, I know it was a stupid thing to write, you know it was a stupid thing to write, everyone else reading knows it was a stupid thing to write. But the fact remains that you wrote it.

Unless you are in the habit of writing things you don't at some level believe, then it looks like you believe something pretty stupid.

What do you think happened 10 years ago? This has been the system for more than 2 decades.

This is a very revealing thread to be honest.

This article in the Telegraph is really scraping the bottom of the anti-trans barrel, trying to generate outrage about a practice which is long established, done for sound legal and practical reason, has absolutely no impact on anyone else, and isn't even really an advantage (as others have explained, it means you can't use online services and the PDI phoneline does not guarantee a short wait or someone at the end of the line who can help you). And yet so many here have fallen for the rage bait hook line and sinker, many apparently without even properly reading the article or doing two seconds of research which would answer many of the questions and presumptions made on this thread (no, this isn't new; no, you can't just phone up HMRC and say you're trans to get special treatment; no, it's not done to protect frontline staff from the horrors of having to speak to trans customers; no, it's not done because trans people like to complain; yes, getting a GRC impacts your pension entitlements if you're of an age where your sex makes a difference; etc etc). It is genuinely fascinating how a group of people so utterly obsessed about trans people actually know so little about the reality of their lives or the legislations and processes that impact them. You'd think perhaps that's the kind of thing you'd need to learn a lot about before forming such loud and strident opinions that you then expect everyone else to take incredibly seriously. But apparently not.

What is apparent is that this has nothing to do with women's spaces, fairness in sports, safeguarding, prisons, hospitals, rape crisis centres, or any of the other shields the gender critical movement likes to hold up to pretend that's what their movement is about instead of simply being an objection to trans people existing. Threads like this make the lie in that abundantly clear - what we have here is a group of people throwing their toys out of the tram with full force over a minor administrative process that doesn't impact them in the slightest, just because it involves acknowledging trans people exist and have a legal right to privacy and protection from discrimination, something any person in connection with reality and with a shred of human decency would have no problem with.

acknowledging trans people exist and have a legal right to privacy

Not to start the whole thing up again (please), my main concern was that some trans-identified people (with a GRC) have a right to privacy that other protected characteristics don't have, and therefore have a "special" connection to HMRC that only other "special" people have (mainly the rich and famous ones). They even have a right to privacy that other trans identified people do not have.

I'm not going to hash over the whole thing again, and if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. But I do not have to agree that this is fair, and that's not "throwing my toys." It also doesn't mean I don't have any connection to reality or that I don't have any human decency.

That was quite a rant, by the way. You don't have to stick around, you know, just to prove all of us wrong. If you're exasperated by the discussion, well, that's on you.

This is a very revealing thread to be honest.

What its revealing is the people are beginning to understand the lengths the state will go to to protect men who are attempting to conceal their sex.

You say people are falling for rage bait, id say you are very angry that people are beginning to understand the safeguarding implications of the GRA.

yes

There have been no convincing answers to the question of why the state needs to concern itself with helping an individual to pretend to be a member of the opposite sex

knowing what sex a person is is apparently an invasion of their privacy. except, of course, that it isn't

If the GRC just gave a man a certificate to recognise his gender, it could be as private as he wished. It would be of no consequence to anyone else. But then, he wouldn't need to use a special helpline, either.

It's the fact that he's been given a female birth certificate that's sensitive information.

This has already been explained to you 20,000 times. Other protected characteristics don't need their data handled in a different way because HMRC DOES NOT HOLD information on people's ethnicity, sexuality or religious beliefs, or on any other data that would be considered "special category". For most people, the only protected characteristics HMRC would record are sex and age, neither of which are special category data (it is not a trans person's sex but their trans status which is special category). A trans person without a GRC does not need their data handled in a different way because HMRC would not at that point be holding the information that they are trans as they cannot change their record without a GRC.

You don't have to stick around, you know, just to prove all of us wrong.

Well, yes, this is what happens isn't it. Anyone who speaks out about the amount of hateful, ignorant, ragebaity, reactionary, uninformed or just plain false information that gets shared on this board on a regular basis gets brigaded, dogpiled and bullied or gets so fed up and exasperated they leave, leaving nothing but an echo chamber that gets increasingly nasty as the people in it lose all sense of proportion as to what is a normal way to talk or think about other human beings.

"You can choose to identify a man" =/= "A woman who identifies as a woman deserves to be harassed".

You just made it up to suit your own idiotic argument.

uh uh lovey

in answer to the question "am I allowed to conceal the fact that I'm a woman in order to avoid misogyny and sexual harassment?"

your answer was 'Sure, if you want"

this is the disadvantage of things being written down - people can call you on your bullshit

if you don't believe that women can identify out of misogyny then that's fine (and also correct), but does that mean you understand that people perceive women as women even when they role play as men?

I follow the logic of the phone line.

As a woman, I also still depend completely and utterly on a frame work of rights that can only exist if sex is recognised in law.

So where does that leave me?

This has already been explained to you 20,000 times.

And. I. said. I. understood.

quote: "if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is."

What you can't force me to say is that I think it's fair.

an echo chamber that gets increasingly nasty

I haven't said anything nasty to anyone here. You accused all of us of not being in touch with reality.

If you don't like the "echo chamber " why do you keep coming back?

Is it simply to berate us and to try to get us to agree that we think it's fair? We don't have to agree with you on that.

That might seem pretty nasty to some people.

DeepWinterSleep
This has already been explained to you 20,000 times.

I call bullshit. It hasn't. Whether the explanation makes any sense or not is a different matter and is open to question, but the 20,000 is hyperbole.

But you clearly didn't understand because you keep circling back to "well why don't other people get to call the special hotline!". Because it's not a special magic hotline for favourable treatment for precious princesses, it's a department trained to handle special category data, if HMRC don't hold any special category data on you then obviously you don't need to call that department. It really isn't more complicated than that. Sit back and enjoy the fact you can access your account online, which PDI customers can't.

I haven't said anything nasty to anyone here.

I'm not talking about being nasty to anyone here, I'm talking about the nasty aggressive dehumanising language which has been used throughout this thread and is commonly used on this board to talk about trans people.

It's clear to me now that you are willfully misunderstanding everything I'm saying because I haven't said I agree with you that this is how the HMRC should be doing things. That's really petty on your part.

I understand that this is how the HMRC do things.

I will never agree that this is fair.

Are you capable of understanding that much?

You throwing more words at me is never going to make me agree with you.
So there's no point in trying.

We'll have to agree to disagree and you can go berate someone else now.

But you clearly didn't understand because you keep circling back to "well why don't other people get to call the special hotline!"

not me, I don't give two shits about the hotline.

I am interested in a good explanation from people who think the state should be actively involved in helping people hide their identity about why they think that's a good idea

Yes; why is it a good idea for the state to help some individuals to (try to) deceive other people?

In practice I think you need to take that up with the judges in the Goodwin case, but I don't think you have any avenue to do so.