‘This won’t improve the life of the average trans person’

Emma Elms has written a perceptive article about the announcement by Liz Truss that in response to the overwhelming for support for reforms to the Gender Recognition Act in the consultation of 2018, the Government's only action is to reduce the fee. A welcome move, but it trivialises the whole procedure. Beaumont Society member Hannah Watson and President, Jane Hamlin, are quoted. Read her article here: https://togetherband.org/blogs/news/gender-recognition-certificate-fee-reduced

Comments

  1. Eleanor Roberts

    Good article. The whole process is demeaning and intrusive. Hannah’s quote is perceptive: Why are we forced to pay money in order to prove who we are? As she says, who else has to go through this level of intrusive probing to prove something about themselves? The whole thing is ridiculous. It stinks of the same kind of prejudice as the Windrush scandal from a few years ago.

  2. Rachel Kimber

    Here’s a link to the French government web page for comparison. I don’t know (yet) what it’s like in practice to go through the process in France, but as officially described it sounds far less intrusive than in the UK. You can present medical evidence if you want, but none is required. You just have to show that you present yourself to those around you in the gender you wish to have recognised, and that those around you know you in that gender.

    https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34826