I think the GRA encourages mental illness. I think it would be better for all concerned, if it didn't exist.
Its premise, of providing privacy, which as you mention, de-facto doesn't exist (visible males, look visibly male), has been long lost. It now seems to be used by men as some "proof of womanhood" card, who are suffering from an identity disorder.
I am always lost when I read legal arguments (I cannot understand most of what Michael and Alessandra write) as I am no lawyer.
However, for me the repeal of the GRA is driven by a political and, most importantly, a moral stand point. The GRA (along with it's predecessors and successors) is like a cancer that needs to be eradicated and the more you wait, the more difficult it will be.
Just like a cancer it has spread everywhere and removing it won't be easy, but it must be done.
Michael seems to say (from what I understand) that it will be impossible to disentangle it, but like they managed to abolish slavery or segregation after centuries of accepted practice, where there is a will there is a way.
I am with Sall Grover on this, and I believe Alessandra thinks so too, the law at present makes no sense, so it cannot be used to table a discussion because the premise is fatally flawed.
I have a technical question from across the pond about a sentence early in this post. You note that sex on the birth register can never be changed. Actually i guess i have two questions: is this also true of the birth certificate? I'm assuming the register is some kind of central database; do you folks also have birth certificates issued to the person(via their parents) like we do, and if so are the rules the same for those as the register?
Second, what is done in the case of intersex persons who are identified as the wrong sex at birth due to their appearance, but then at puberty (or later) the error is discovered? I'm thinking of cases like the intersex athletes that have been in the news in recent years such as Castor Semoyena or (presumably) the Algerian Olympic boxer? Both were recorded as female at birth due to the appearance of their genitals and raised as girls and thus identify as female, and were later found to be chromosomally male (again, presumably in the case of the boxer since we haven't gotten any specific evidence of anything from anyone involved.) How are such cases handled in terms of documentation in the UK?
I'm just curious. It sounds like the original, incorrect sex determination might stay on the birth register permanently, which is interesting. Or would such cases follow the same procedure as any other error in recording (typo or mix-up of data from different newborns, etc)? (I assume there is such a process in the UK, as is the case in all US states.) I'm just rather fascinated by this area of law and medicine and how the law is catching up to medical discoveries and capabilities (in the case of intersex people) and social norms and movements (in the case of trans people) in different countries. Thanks for taking the time to read my question even though it's rather tangential to your main point.
In Scotland (I don’t know how they do it in England) one’s birth information, including sex, is entered onto the Birth Register in Edinburgh. The parents then get an ‘extract’ or copy of that Register as your birth certificate.
In cases where incorrect information has been entered into the Register, (not only for intersex persons needing their sex corrected, in my family tree my uncle had his cause of death corrected after procurator fiscal investigation) a separate entry is made in a separate book, the Register of Corrected Entries. The original entry is not itself corrected and remains in the register, but the reference number of the corrected entry is added so it can be easily found, and then a new extract certificate is printed.
A GRC is not entered into the RCE but entered into another entirely separate register book, where their ‘acquired gender’ is recorded and a new birth certificate issued with their sex changed. This register book, unlike the others, remains completely secret and will not ever be available to the public.
This by itself is tacit acknowledgement that a GRC is not correcting innocently incorrect, honestly mistaken information - but positively entering knowingly fraudulent falsehoods into the official record.
The birth certificate will be amended, but the Register of Births will not. So you will get a birth certificate with the opposite sex but your sex at birth is still correctly recorded. The GRA also allows for several exceptions, where your acquired gender is irrelevant. If your sex was incorrectly recorded at birth because of a genetic condition, then the birth register can be corrected I believe.
I think the GRA encourages mental illness. I think it would be better for all concerned, if it didn't exist.
Its premise, of providing privacy, which as you mention, de-facto doesn't exist (visible males, look visibly male), has been long lost. It now seems to be used by men as some "proof of womanhood" card, who are suffering from an identity disorder.
It's not good for anyone.
I am always lost when I read legal arguments (I cannot understand most of what Michael and Alessandra write) as I am no lawyer.
However, for me the repeal of the GRA is driven by a political and, most importantly, a moral stand point. The GRA (along with it's predecessors and successors) is like a cancer that needs to be eradicated and the more you wait, the more difficult it will be.
Just like a cancer it has spread everywhere and removing it won't be easy, but it must be done.
Michael seems to say (from what I understand) that it will be impossible to disentangle it, but like they managed to abolish slavery or segregation after centuries of accepted practice, where there is a will there is a way.
I am with Sall Grover on this, and I believe Alessandra thinks so too, the law at present makes no sense, so it cannot be used to table a discussion because the premise is fatally flawed.
Please, for those of us across the Pond, define GRA and GRC before using the terms. I am at sea.
Gender Recognition Act, a 2004 Act in the UK which allows people to get a certificate (GRC) to modify their birth certificate.
I have a technical question from across the pond about a sentence early in this post. You note that sex on the birth register can never be changed. Actually i guess i have two questions: is this also true of the birth certificate? I'm assuming the register is some kind of central database; do you folks also have birth certificates issued to the person(via their parents) like we do, and if so are the rules the same for those as the register?
Second, what is done in the case of intersex persons who are identified as the wrong sex at birth due to their appearance, but then at puberty (or later) the error is discovered? I'm thinking of cases like the intersex athletes that have been in the news in recent years such as Castor Semoyena or (presumably) the Algerian Olympic boxer? Both were recorded as female at birth due to the appearance of their genitals and raised as girls and thus identify as female, and were later found to be chromosomally male (again, presumably in the case of the boxer since we haven't gotten any specific evidence of anything from anyone involved.) How are such cases handled in terms of documentation in the UK?
I'm just curious. It sounds like the original, incorrect sex determination might stay on the birth register permanently, which is interesting. Or would such cases follow the same procedure as any other error in recording (typo or mix-up of data from different newborns, etc)? (I assume there is such a process in the UK, as is the case in all US states.) I'm just rather fascinated by this area of law and medicine and how the law is catching up to medical discoveries and capabilities (in the case of intersex people) and social norms and movements (in the case of trans people) in different countries. Thanks for taking the time to read my question even though it's rather tangential to your main point.
In Scotland (I don’t know how they do it in England) one’s birth information, including sex, is entered onto the Birth Register in Edinburgh. The parents then get an ‘extract’ or copy of that Register as your birth certificate.
In cases where incorrect information has been entered into the Register, (not only for intersex persons needing their sex corrected, in my family tree my uncle had his cause of death corrected after procurator fiscal investigation) a separate entry is made in a separate book, the Register of Corrected Entries. The original entry is not itself corrected and remains in the register, but the reference number of the corrected entry is added so it can be easily found, and then a new extract certificate is printed.
A GRC is not entered into the RCE but entered into another entirely separate register book, where their ‘acquired gender’ is recorded and a new birth certificate issued with their sex changed. This register book, unlike the others, remains completely secret and will not ever be available to the public.
This by itself is tacit acknowledgement that a GRC is not correcting innocently incorrect, honestly mistaken information - but positively entering knowingly fraudulent falsehoods into the official record.
I never knew any of that (and I am in Scotland). Thanks for the explanation.
Now I understand what the "extract" is.
The birth certificate will be amended, but the Register of Births will not. So you will get a birth certificate with the opposite sex but your sex at birth is still correctly recorded. The GRA also allows for several exceptions, where your acquired gender is irrelevant. If your sex was incorrectly recorded at birth because of a genetic condition, then the birth register can be corrected I believe.