We must repeal the GRA
The Government’s response to the petition: “Do not allow people to have acquired gender listed as sex on Government ID” reveals that the law is a mess.
If anyone was still under any doubts about the extent to which our elected representatives (amongst others) have embraced magical beliefs in recent years, they could do worse than look at the government response to the petition: “Do not allow people to have acquired gender listed as sex on Government ID”.
It has a very simple request and rationale:
We call upon Government to reform arrangements for issuing Government IDs such as passports and driving licenses, so that these cannot list a person's acquired gender as their sex.
We believe that the Government issuing men with identity documents saying they are women poses safeguarding issues.
Of course, nobody expected the government response to be “Wow – good point! We hadn’t thought of that”.
The safeguarding implications of pretending that men are women have been pointed out time and again. After all, safeguarding is the main reason we have segregation by sex. Any loophole – no matter how small – removes safeguarding protections because the men we need to safeguard against are the very ones who would abuse the loophole.
But those with the power to protect women and children never fail to disappoint.
The Government Response kicks off by restating their desire to “protect the rights of transgender people”. As if there was ever any doubt that the rights of anyone else might be considered first, much less the rights of that demographic who really are the most vulnerable – children.
We are assured that:
There are processes in place, with the right checks and balances, to allow for those who wish to legally change their gender to do so.
And, more interestingly, that:
Systems are in place to support transgender people in obtaining a passport or driving licence in their acquired gender, with the appropriate security procedures in place, without the need for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Passports and driving licences are often part of the evidence provided by transgender people to the Gender Recognition Panel to obtain a GRC.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Because this describes a process that starts by assuming the outcome that it claims to manage and control.
What checks and balances?
Passports have only a sex marker, and yet HM Passport guidance explains how to change that marker to reflect an individual’s “acquired gender”. All you need is:
a letter from your doctor or medical consultant confirming that your change of gender is likely to be permanent, and evidence of your change of name such as a deed poll.
What probability is placed on this likelihood of permanence? 95%? 99%?
Or does a doctor just need to believe the feelings of this particular patient are more likely to be permanent than not?
And if any doctor refuses to supply this letter, the applicant can simply ask Gender GP. They’ll even do it for free. So much for checks and balances.
What is being changed – gender or legal sex?
The smooth transition from “legally change their gender” to “change their legal sex” and back again to “acquired gender” does so much heavy lifting in this response. We’re not supposed to notice that sex and gender are different things.
But we know sex is not gender.
We’re repeatedly told that “nobody is saying you can actually change sex”. So why should sex markers on official documents be changed reflect some other characteristic?
And when did the sex marker on passports, driving licences and other documentation become a matter of self-ID anyway? (Answer: When Stonewall started writing Home Office guidance.)
Passport application forms warn us that “It is a criminal offence to make a false statement to get a passport”. Why, then, is it not a criminal offence to record false information?
Until a GRC is issued, a person’s legal sex remains their birth sex, so the Government response acknowledges that these documents are being falsified:
Passports and driving licences are often part of the evidence provided by transgender people to the Gender Recognition Panel to obtain a GRC.
It’s a mess, isn’t it?
It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy
A GRC is what confers a person with a “legal sex” that differs from their birth sex and that’s why it’s so important to have “checks and balances” to make sure that nobody can change their legal sex unless both they and their doctor really, really believe they should be allowed to.
(Yes. I know).
If this is anything like a robust check or balance, then some applicants will be refused (and some are).
Which leads to the inescapable conclusion either that some people will have changed the sex marker on their documentation who should not have been allowed to do so. Or that changing the sex marker on documentation is itself sufficient to prove good intent.
Despite it being so easy to do.
What is to be done, then?
At the very least, the government must clarify that the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers to physical sex, not legal sex, so that women’s protections are completely lost. That would be a start.
But this mess has been caused by Gender Recognition Act 2004.
By pretending that it makes any kind of sense to recognise two types of sex – physical and legal. By claiming that “gender” is the sort of attribute that can be acquired (or even defined). By constantly using the undefined notion of “gender” to subvert the reality of sex.
We must have legislation that is based in reality.