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The Gender Recognition Act Consultation – What You Need To Know

A lot has happened this week in relation to LGBT activism. On Tuesday 3rd July, the Government Equalities Office (GEO) released the results of the LGBT survey conducted last year. That same day, the government also launched its LGBT Action Plan to try and address many of the inequalities that the survey results revealed. This includes a commitment to provide £4.5 million in funds by March 2020, and an intention for more after that date. A big part of the action plan includes a consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), which was the first piece of UK legislation to allow trans people to legally change their gender, by gaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). In this post I’m going to focus on the GRA, try and explain what the current Act means, and go through the consultation which is available to complete here until 11pm on 19th October 2018.

What do you currently need to do to access a change of gender in the UK?

The current requirements to access a GRC depend upon the application route taken, of which there are currently three – the ‘standard’ route, the ‘alternative’ route, and the ‘overseas’ route. For the standard route you need:

  • To be 18+ years old;
  • To have, or have had, gender dysphoria (the wording of the act doesn’t specify diagnosis, but the government guidance website does);
  • To have lived in the ‘acquired’ gender for at least two years;
  • To make a statutory declaration to live in the ‘acquired’ gender for the rest of your life.

It’s also important to note that the 2004 act is entirely binary – saying that a person of ‘either’ gender, living or changing to ‘the other’ gender, etc. Non-binary legal recognition is currently not possible in the UK.

The alternative route is very similar, and is mainly there for people in (protected – i.e. legally recognised) marriages and civil partnerships. You still need to be 18+, make a statutory declaration to live in your gender until death, and have or have had gender dysphoria (or had surgery to change your sexual characteristics – this is one difference between the routes, as this isn’t an alternative stated in the standard route). However, you must also have lived as your gender for at least six years prior to 10th December 2014 in England, or 16th December 2014 in Scotland. The overseas route is if your gender has been legally recognised by an ‘approved country or territory’ (though this document hasn’t updated changes in the legislation of other countries since 2011).

The alternative route is easily the most complicated aspect of the GRA because of its interaction with marriage law, which has change since the GRA’s introduction. People who are married can (now) stay married when getting a GRC, but both the person and their spouse must both fill in a statutory declaration saying they intend to stay married. If the spouse refuses to do this, it creates a seriously problematic situation because their is no ‘timer’ on their refusal. An ‘interim’ certificate can be granted (which can be used as grounds to end the marriage) if this statutory declaration is not completed. This has been termed the spousal veto, which I touched upon back when writing about The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. This is also one of the areas where devolution impacts the GRA – an interim certificate can only become a full certificate in England and Wales once the marriage is ended. If the marriage was registered in Scotland, the interim GRC can be used to apply to the sheriff court for a full certificate without ending the marriage first. Because same-sex civil partnerships still don’t exist under UK law (though this might change, after a Supreme Court victory on this issue on 27th June 2018), civilly partnered couples have to convert their civil partnership to a marriage before applying to the Gender Recognition Panel.

So yes. If you fulfil the criteria for one of the routes, you have to download the appropriate form, and post this with ‘supporting documents’ and a £140 fee to the Gender Recognition Panel. The supporting documents currently needed are:

  • An original or certified copy of your birth certificate;
  • Copies of deed polls/other official documents of name change;
  • Proof of living in one’s ‘acquired gender’ for the necessary amount of time (2 years for standard, 6 years for alternative) – original copies of your passport, driving licence, payslips, utility bills, etc.;
  • ‘Any medical reports’. This has to include either ‘a report made by a registered medical practitioner practising in the field of gender dysphoria’ (who are listed here) or ‘a report made by a registered psychologist practising in that field’. In both cases, a second report is also needed by a registered medical practitioner (who can be anyone, gender specialist or not). This is expected to be either your GP, or surgeon.

There is no interview with the Gender Recognition Panel.

Some of the problems that have been pointed out with this system are (non-exhaustive list!):

  • No possibility of legal recognition for people under 18, non-binary people, or intersex people;
  • pathologises gender identity by requiring extensive medical documentation;
  • The possibility for a spouse to block access;
  • The offensive notion that other people can adjudicate on whether a person’s gender is deemed ‘real’ or not, in the eyes of the law;
  • The cost;
  • The stress and labour of the accompanying bureaucracy.

What is the current consultation?

The consultation is 25 pages long. You have to provide contact details, including an address. This will hopefully discourage individuals who you would otherwise provide insincere or abusive answers.

It is important that responses to the consultation do not conflate or confuse the Act’s provision with the remit of The Equality Act 2010.

Following the contact information questions, the consultation asks for:

  • Experiences of Trans Respondents;
  • Whether you think there should be a requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a report detailing treatment received, evidence of living in the acquired gender for a period of time, respectively;
  • Whether you agree with the current provisions for spousal consent for married persons;
  • Whether the fee should be removed, and what other financial costs trans people face when applying and their impact;
  • Whether privacy and disclosure of information provisions in section 22 of the GRA are adequate;
  • If there’s anything you want to say about how the current process affects people with one or more protected characteristic under The Equality Act 2010;
  • Whether you think changing the GRA will affect the participation of trans people in sport;
  • Whether you think the operations of:
    • the single-sex and separate-sex service exceptions
    • the occupational requirement exception
    • the communal accommodation exception
    • the armed forces exception
    • the marriage exception
    • the insurance exception in relation to gender reassignment in the Equality Act 2010 will be affected by changing the GRA;
  • Whether you think the act needs to accommodate non-binary people;
  • Any further comments.

All questions have open text fields for full answers, to accompany mostly yes/no tick boxes.

 

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LGBT, News, The gender binary, Transgender

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Why We Should Stand Up For Trans Rights and Recognition at the University of Toronto

My good friend and colleague S.W. Underwood and myself wrote a piece in response to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s recent comments at the University of Toronto, regarding his refusal to use the pronouns individuals identify with. Please see here for the article!

http://torontoist.com/2016/10/u-of-t-trans-rights/

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News, non-binary, Popular Culture, Science, Theory Literature

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Why I don’t want to talk about Caitlyn Jenner

The irony of this piece of writing isn’t lost on me. But as possibly the most visible and discussed transgender person ever, it’s practically impossible to be engaged with transgender scholarship and activism without acknowledging that she has influenced the conversations that are being had.

When I wrote about Caitlyn’s coming out last year, there were two points about the future I was keen to see pan out. The first was that her reality TV foothold gave her a valuable platform despite not becoming a well-informed activist overnight. The second was hoping that she inspired more and better quality allyship. The latter point is unquantifiable, and I remain hopeful that this is the case (although this is the direct the world is slowly moving in anyway). The former… well, it’s time to review.

It’s timely, as the premier of the second season of I am Cait, and it’s fair to say that Jenner is clearly willing to engage with members of the trans community beyond her political position as a conservative Republican. The inclusion of Kate Bornstein is a delight for many, as her books Gender Outlaw and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation among others have embraced and supported a diverse cross-section of the trans community.

cait

As Jenny Boylan put it “The Ingenious, Subversive thing is, @IAmCait is not actually about her”. Productive dialogue between left and right wing people is incredibly hard to foster, because no-one wants to change their mind. Everyone holds their views because they feel they are right, or better, or most useful. Stepping out of the echo chamber is hard. I can definitely imagine commenting more on this show, because there seems to be an emphasis on growth through conversation.

Jenner’s own position however – she’s quite recently declared extremist right wing presidential candidate Ted Cruz as “very nice”, and wants to be his ‘trans ambassador’. This is despite the fact that Ted Cruz views the support of trans students as “lunacy”, and that a trans student using a space “inflicts” them on others using that space. Cruz also has associations with Kevin Swanson, an extremist pastor advocating that gay people be put to death, and has associated himself with the support of extremist anti-abortionists who are associated with murder and attempted bombing.

Brynne Tannehill has given an excellent reasoning for Jenner’s seeming ability to doublethink away Cruz’s bigotry. She articulates how conservative trans people such as Jenner:

don’t have skin in the game. They were ultra-conservative before transition, and remained so after transition because a Cruz presidency doesn’t endanger them personally. They live in safe places, with a safe income.

escape cognitive dissonance in a lot of ways. They don’t believe that Ted Cruz would do all the horrible things he and the FRC have promised to do. They believe that the most important thing to transgender people is “a good economy” that gives us more job opportunities. They claim to be “looking at the bigger picture,” or say that “I’m not a single issue voter,” with an implication of moral and intellectual superiority.

Tannehill explains how polemical anti-left understandings of Democrat policy lead them to the conclusion that they would be better off under Cruz. For those who are literal millionaires, in terms of taxation, they may well be right. But even if we ignore the tired discussion that illustrates how right wing economic policies favour businesses and the wealthy, Jenner fails to recognise how:

Ted Cruz has promised to force the world’s largest employer of transgender people (the DoD) to hunt down and fire all of its transgender employees. Never mind that if the FRC’s plan is implemented, transgender people would not have access to correct government ID. Nor would they have legal recourse when discriminated against in employment. Nor when refused service, nor when tormented by religiously motivated co-workers, nor when school administrators can legally refuse to provide an education to transgender students.

This would obviously hit poorer trans people, trans people of colour, disabled trans people the hardest. Caitlyn has wealth, glamour, and a platform – but her lived experience doesn’t bring much to the table. She doesn’t have experiences of marginalisation that have sharpened her consideration of social issues, nor is she a scholar. She has said how she would have “all my girls to advise him” – she might be able to wield the social capital to protect those near and dear to her, but what about everyone else? In my article last year, I quoted S. Bear Bergman postulating “wondering who else should get 2 hrs on prime time TV?” Innumerable trans people with a spectacular range of stories and expertise to share come to mind, some have appeared on TV, some have not. I would find it alarming if anyone with the platform of Jenner were to normalise a radical, hateful extremist such as Cruz, despite the potential laudability of what she might be trying to do through her show.

To be clear, I applaud attempts by Jenner to engage outside of a conservative echo chamber. So why don’t I want to talk about her anymore? Because she’s not who we should be listening to. Some of her friends, and her critics, and the community she wants to represent, are.

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LGBT, News, Popular Culture, Transgender, TV

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Review: The Transgender Equality Report, January 2016

Released on the 14th January, this 98 page report has already been usefully digested and impressively considered by a range of groups within the trans community (including Action for Trans Health, the Non-Binary Inclusion Project, and Beyond the Binary). I’ll be going through it section by section, aiming to break down the content for those who haven’t read it, and provide some points of consideration for those who have. The report can be found here.

The report comes from the Women and Equalities Committee, chaired by Mrs. Maria Miller. The committee contains 6 Conservative MPs, 4 Labour MPs, and 1 MP from the Scottish National Party. The bolded subtitles are parallel with the sections of the report itself.

Over 250 written evidence submissions were received, and five oral evidence sessions were held. Each submission was however limited to 3000 words, which rather caps those expert trans organisations and individuals who may have a lot of useful information to say on a range of sub-topics.

1. Introduction

Here the report provides a breakdown of terminology – what is a trans woman, what is a trans man, what is cis, etc. etc. They do take a simplified approach to non-binary, simply saying it is “located at a (fixed or variable) point along a continuum between male and female; or “non gendered”, i.e. involving identification as neither male nor female” (p. 5). They also specify here that it wasn’t possible to undertake an ‘in-depth’ consideration of non-binary needs in the report, but highlight a need for this, likewise for intersex people, whom they recognise as having potentially overlapping but distinctive needs.

They mention that “before commencing the inquiry, we consulted informally with representatives of two key stakeholder organisations, Press for Change and Stonewall”. PfC is a long standing champion of transgender legal rights, and Stephen Whittle (who founded the organisation) acted as Specialist Advisor – quite appropriately as he is both trans himself and a professor of law! The fact that Stonewall only began considering trans issues less than three months ago makes me wonder if there weren’t more experienced groups that might’ve assisted, and whether Stonewall somewhat rode on the coattails of its recognisability due to its sexuality based work.

2. Cross-Government Strategy

In this small section, the Government Equalities Office (GEO) is introduced. They published ‘Advancing Transgender Equality: A plan for action’ in 2011, which was criticized as largely unimplemented. They highlight that within 6 months the government must agree a new strategy which it can deliver, with full cross-departmental support, and must make a clear commitment to abide by the Yogyakarta principles, and Resolution 2048 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Given that these pieces of legislature were created in 2007 and April 2015 respectively, I am disappointed but unsurprised that these have not been explicitly incorporated sooner.

3. Gender Recognition Act 2004

Topics considered under this section include:

  • Applying for Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs)
  • Spousal consent for gender recognition
  • The age limit of 18+ for gender recognition
  • data protection and excessive requests for GRCs

It’s good to see the committee recognising here that despite the step forward it was at the time (albeit obviously imperfect), there are aspects that are particularly dated and lacking, and in need of updating. It is highlighted that the requirement to provide documentation of a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria (then Gender Identity Disorder) is necessary for a Gender Recognition Certificate to be awarded, is pathologising and problematic. The arbitrary and uncritical requirement of two years living ‘in role’ (whatever that actually means) before surgical gender affirmation will be provided was also highlighted as a failing. The committee concludes that “in place of the present, medicalised, quasi-judicial application process, an administrative process must be developed, centred on the wishes of the individual applicant, rather than on intensive analysis by doctors and lawyers” (p. 14). This is a welcome change, but desperately needs more specific functionality to be formulated and disclosed. As gender is assigned at birth on the basis of genital appearance, it is ludicrously unfair for those individuals for whom this cursory assessments turns out to be inaccurate to have to pay £140 for a certificate to have this revised. Whilst it is pointed out that the fee can be waived, an effective replacement system would benefit from being transparent, costless to applicants, and respectful of the self-determination of gender. Zac at Transistence points out that the report makes some factual errors about the requirements for a GRC, which may make it a more difficult process than they imply.

The next section on spousal consent has been reviewed as one of the more disappointing aspects of the report (among the reviewers cited at the start of this article). As it stands, an individual in a marriage who wishes to undertake a legal change of how their gender is recognised requires the agreement of their spouse on the basis that marriage “takes the form of a contract between two people of different sexes or two people of the same sex”. Action for Trans Health quite astutely makes the point that the basis of consent required for the status of the marriage to change from ‘opposite to same’ sex (or vice versa) is a clumsy, inefficient, and ultimately unnecessary (unless one is still attempting to preserve the ‘separate but equal’ feel to marriage based on the genders of the couple). No discussion is present over the idea of marriage contracts being de-gendered specifically (although it’s a good thing that on page 63 it is suggested that the government “should be moving towards “non-gendering” official records as a general principle and only recording gender where it is a relevant piece of information” – though the question remains, what criteria would be used to define gender as relevant?). For the government to fail to recognise the need to modify any system that allows one individual the power to prevent the legal recognition of another person’s gender (even for a time) is deeply concerning. No action was advised, despite advisory recognition that an abusive spouse may take advantage of this policy. Also, Scotland’s solution to this avoids delay or restriction on the trans spouse:

Under the Marriage and Civil Partnership Act (Scotland) 2014, which came into force on 16th December 2014, a married trans person whose spouse does not consent to the granting of a full GRC is able to apply to a Sheriff Court for a full GRC, on the basis of an interim GRC, without divorce or annulment having taken place. The process of obtaining a full GRC is thus expedited. The spouse of a trans person is entitled to be notified of the issuing of a GRC and can initiate divorce proceedings on that basis. (p. 16)

If Scotland can do it, why can’t England? It is one of the most insufficient responses that the committee concludes that any abuse of the legislation would be “deplorable and inexcusable” (p.17) yet they simply “more ensure it is informed about the extent and ways of addressing the problem”. The implication is that the ‘right’ to not be married to your partner for one single second as a legally recognised trans person is equal to the right to have one’s gender recognised. Thus the argument that marriage is a legal contract and that the non-trans spouse has equal say is rooted in transphobia.

A point many may regard as a victory, the report recommends that “provision should be made to allow 16 and 17 year olds, with appropriate support, to apply for gender recognition, on the basis of self-declaration” (p.19).

That not a single person has been prosecuted under the bit of legislation (section 22) to protect trans people from being outed illustrates how it has failed to protect anyone from or hold anyone accountable for this particular manifestation of transphobia. The report indicates the Ministry of Justice must investigate why, and work with courts to deal with this. The report recognises that there are “very few” situations where asking for proof of legal gender is appropriate, and yet the fact that this occurs raises cause for concern at how an individual’s trans status may be responded to by an organisation. As it is not unlawful to ask a person to produce a GRC under the GRA, it seems sensible to me that a clause be inserted that this is with the proviso that the request is justified and substantiated, and that absolutely no negative consequences occur if the request is refused on the basis of not being necessary.

4. Equality Act 2010

  • ‘Gender reassignment’ as a protected characteristic
  • Exemptions – separate sex and single sex services
  • Separate gender sport

This section paid some important attention to language, recognising how scrutiny of the terms ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘transsexual’ can be problematic for many, not least because of the increasing number of trans people for whom these terms are not reflective for. Lack of clarity can prevent the act from being fully effective, as it is illustrated that many erroneously believe that a GRC is necessary for protection when it is not. However, with regards to whether non-binary people are protected, it was stated that:

When the Equality Bill was going through Parliament the then Solicitor General had clearly indicated that it was only the provision in respect of discrimination by perception which would protect those members of “the wider transgender community”who did not come under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. That is, they would only be protected if they were discriminated against because they were perceived to be proposing to undergo, to be undergoing, or to have undergone gender reassignment. The difficulty with this provision is that there are likely to be cases where an individual from the wider trans community, is discriminated against because of who they are and not because they are perceived to be transsexual.

That the report wishes to amend the act to protect on the basis of ‘gender identity’ is a positive step, but as with all aspects of this report, actual results will speak louder than good intentions.

The next point considered by the report was ‘separate sex and single sex services’, referring particularly to women’s shelters (such as rape crisis, or domestic abuse shelters), and prisons. A group called ‘Women Analysing Policy on Women’ reported a position ringing of uncritical TERF based arguments, saying there is a ‘clash’ when women who would feel unsafe accessing a service that is open to trans women should have the right to access services that exclude trans women – which is permissible as an exemption under the Equality Act. It is obviously terrible if any woman feels unsafe because of others using a service for those who have experienced violence. However clunky the comparison however, the debate would not be being had if it was a question of white women feeling unsafe around a service allowing black women access. That there is zero examples of pre, post, or non-operative transgender women committing a sexual crime in a womens’ shelter, the argument rests upon an implicit delegitimisation of trans women, as ‘really’ men. Such legislation not only endangers and discriminates against vulnerable trans women (who are statistically more likely to be at risk of sexual violence, or engagement in underground economies which may lead to imprisonment), but also polices a trans woman’s ‘authenticity’ on the basis of how well she ‘passes’ – a trans woman who is not read as such may be able to access exclusionary services anyway, whilst others would not. Worryingly, the Minister for Women and Equalities thought that such exclusionary practices were being used “proportionately, appropriately, and fairly”, despite this including facilities as broad and vital as public changing rooms, bathing facilities, and toilets (p. 30). That they only recommend amendment of the Equality Act such that “the occupational requirements provision and/or the single-sex/separate services provision shall not apply in relation to discrimination against a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004” (p.32) – that is, awarded a GRC – is insufficient, and lacking in critical consideration.

Finally for this section was the consideration of separate-gender sport. The report recognises that exclusion of trans people from sport in their acquired gender should be a much rarer than than it is. Sports have to demonstrate that they are ‘gender affected’, and that a trans person would have some kind of unfair advantage, or for there to be a ‘safety risk’ to competitors. They recommend that the government works with Sport England to produce some guidance to avoid exclusions, as they recognise the unlikeliness of an exclusion being justified.

5. NHS Services

Obviously there’s a lot to be said here. and it is divided by:

  • GPs attitudes
  • Education and training of doctors
  • Professional regulation of doctors
  • GICs (adults)
  • Treatment protocols
  • Capacity and quality of services
  • The Tavistock Clinic (children and adolescents)

There are some recognitions that are important here, most clearly at the start of this section the clear admission that “the NHS is letting down trans people, with too much evidence of an approach that can be said to be discriminatory” (p. 35). There is further explicit recognition that “GPs in particular too often lack an understanding of: trans identities; the diagnosis of gender dysphoria; referral pathways into Gender Identity Services; and their own role in prescribing hormone treatment. And it is asserted that in some cases this leads to appropriate care not being provided” (p. 42). Whilst the report asks the General Medical Council to “provide clear reassurance” that they take transphobia seriously as a form of professional misconduct, there isn’t any more specific discussion of the importance of implementing a holistic and integrated consideration of gender identity into medical training.

It is positive the the problematic association between transgender identity and mental health services is recognised. I particularly support the notion of Gender Identity Services being established as a specialty in its own right, as it is a profoundly intersectional discipline that cannot be readily reduced to or conflated with only endocrinology, or surgery, or gynecology, etc.

Disappointing however is the seeming misunderstanding of the informed consent model illustrated by point 212 (p. 47). They suggest that the model is unconvincing because it would allow anyone to access whatever service (hormones, surgeries) they want on demand with no further scrutiny. It is accepted that there is a significant difference between accessing different gender affirming treatments – the ramifications of hormones are fundamentally different to phalloplasty or vaginoplasty. Not only do these have different ramifications for the individual, but also restrictive NHS budgets (that very much could be expanded were it not for ideological Conservative decisions… though that’s not a discussion for here) mean that the clinical urgency for an individual needs justifying in terms of need. A difficult topic, when it comes to finite resources I can at least understand the wish to prioritise say, those experiencing dysphoria over those who do not, or not as badly, but creating that hierarchy of need is never going to be without ethical issues. However, I do think this committee has been too quick in dismissing the merits that an informed consent model would offer, at least in the provision of hormones. That many trans people seek access to hormones only, with either no need/desire or at least no firm commitment on surgical intervention would allow those who are on the enormous NHS waiting lists to rapidly have their needs met. That there is a double standard regarding when cis individuals access hormones for a wide range of medical reasons is evidence to suggest that the refusal to allow trans people to take responsibility for their choice to take hormones or not, is at the very least, cis-centric. Were informed consent utilised for hormones, I posit that the waiting lists for GICs would decrease dramatically, allowing greater speed, attention, and resources to be provided to those individuals negotiating surgical gender affirmation.

I am somewhat perplexed by the claim that “The requirement to undergo “Real Life Experience” prior to genital (reassignment/reconstructive) surgery must not entail conforming to externally imposed and arbitrary (binary) preconceptions about gender identity and presentation. It must be clear that this requirement is not about qualifying for surgery, but rather preparing the patient to cope with the profound consequences of surgery” (p. 47). Does it require two years to do that? Are there other examples where surgeries are delayed for that long on the basis of preparation? What is the period meant to be an experience of, if not to satisfy to clinicians that the trans person has shown they’re super-serious enough? How does living in a gender role relate to practical preparations on genital surgery (given that major genital surgery in cis people doesn’t involve this). Obviously it’s good that they’re saying this isn’t for the imposition of external, socially constructed binary values, but I fail to see how as it is currently enforced, it is actually justified – and indeed, it has been long criticised as arbitrary, cis-centric gatekeeping.

In point 230 (p. 50) the report discusses how lack of specialist clinicians is a major, underdiscussed barrier to the introduction of more services. Whilst I think that a revision of hormone access ease would go a long way, this point could have been related to an explicit making-visible of gendered medicine within medical training, but wasn’t. Again, it’s great that the committee recognise how appalling it is that waiting lists for GICs are so long when the legal obligation under the NHS constitution is for treatment provision within 18 weeks, at this stage they’re simply reiterating that things are bad – when a lot of people want to see something done. So – good, but I’ll celebrate when we get some change, thank you.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s pleasing to see the committee recommend a reduction in time required for young service users to wait before puberty blockers can be accessed – due to their reversibility (primarily), and the sensitivity of time as a factor. Such a vague (albeit welcome) conclusion could benefit greatly from some practical recommendation of how the time scale might practically change – well within the capability of discussion given the high involvement of the GICs and NHS in the discussions underpinning this report.

6. Tackling Everyday Transphobia

Here the committee makes points about:

  • Hate crime
  • Recording names and gender identities
  • Prison services
  • Online services
  • Schools and post-school education
  • Social care

It is a breath of fresh air to see the report explicitly state that the Ministry of Justice must ensure it consults fully with the trans community (p. 57) – and indeed, this should be the case for every sub-topic of the report. Low conviction rates, practical issues of intersectionality (which box do you tick when a trans woman of colour is a victim?!), and a (shocking) lack of parity between trans hate crimes and other hate crimes were all specifically acknowledged.

The report highlights that the laws on names in the UK are commonly incorrectly assumed, in that there is no such thing as a ‘legal name’ (p. 59). It is very positive that the committee recognises the necessity of dropping the pathologising practice of requiring a doctor’s letter in order to change a name on a passport. Further, the fact that Australia allows for passports with the gender marker ‘X’ rather than M or F was received positively as evidence that the UK would be quite capable of following suit. The claim by Karen Bradley that “The gender identifiers are important in making sure that somebody can be identified” fails to recognise that 1. there’s a *picture* and 2. there’s a host of additional identifying information, and that the gender marker doesn’t actually tell you anything, in and of itself. I believe the report would’ve benefited from deconstructing this flimsy counter-point. Overall however, the recommendation to move to a de-gendering of official documents where unnecessary (that is, most of them) should be praised. It was a missed opportunity not to link this discussion to that of marriage licences.

The recognition of the report of the deaths of Vicky Thompson and Joanne Latham underlined the sobriety and importance of the topic of prisons. Whilst the report recognises the importance of protecting trans prisoners and that housing individuals in prisons which affirm their gender identities, a lack of statement calling upon the Ministry of Justice to guarantee the respect of gender among trans prisoners (GRC or not) does not in my view engage with this topic with enough dedication. Access for Trans Health illustrate how there is impetus for prison services to allow trans charities and researchers more transparent access in order to collect necessary data about trans prison experiences, and also highlights the conspicuous lack of discussion of immigration detention, or how non-binary prisoners are to be located (one of many important points relating to non-binary that could be made, given that the report specifically states that non-binary was not engaged with in depth).

The assertion that trans issues should be taught in schools under Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is an overdue but welcome conclusion. As with many of the points in this report, that certain things should happen is a given, and the details of how they will be properly introduced so as to be effective is the real question. Inclusion of transgender issues as part of teacher training is another excellent point – although consistency across private schools, academies, and religious schools are all concerns that necessitate attention.

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As I have highlighted throughout, there are some very positive points and some letdowns. My overall sense at this point is one of caution – because fundamentally, nothing has actually changed yet. Whilst I do not wish to play down the hard work of many passionate and informed people for their part in this report, it’s undeniable that this publication marks the beginning of the execution of the next generation of change, not the end. Also it’s important to note that transgender equality does not exist in a vacuum from other social issues, and thus factors such as wages, income support/tax credits, the junior doctor’s contract (by proxy), NHS and prison privitisation and a wide range of other government policies will have very serious impacts on many transgender people.

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News, Transgender

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On ‘Straight Acting’ and Stonewall.

Yesterday, I came across an article written by Noah Michelson provocatively titled ‘If You Think ‘Straight Acting’ Is An Acceptable Term, You’re An A**hole’. I would say the article is well worth reading, as it evocatively considers some of the concerns with Roland Emmerich’s new film ‘Stonewall’ – namely the accusations of historical inaccuracy, whitewashing, and homonormativity¹ in order to try and bring the film to a wider audience.

Michelson makes the point that:

Being “straight-acting,” for a gay man at least, is directly related to how convincingly he is able to present traditionally masculine mannerisms. The term is so markedly offensive because its very existence insists that there is a particular, instantly identifiable manner of being gay (defined by effeminacy). And what’s more, those qualities are seen as patently unattractive, undesirable and wildly dangerous.

He discusses his own experiences of policing his forms of self expression to articulate a more normative masculinity, in order to protect himself from queer bashing. He remarks how he regrets this, but poignantly asks whether he’d even be here to regret it if he hadn’t – emphasising increasingly how ‘same-sex’ attraction in and of itself doesn’t render one a victim, but the expression of transgressive masculinities and femininities amongst women and men respectively (and those who cross over or identify as neither in particular) puts one at risk. Now, there are those queers who, in the interests of their own safety, or their own ability to socially navigate the world they’re in with the least possible hassle will engaging in ‘straight acting’ actively. Then there are those who simply find that their default state of being is to articulate themselves in an unremarkable, normative manner. There is of course nothing wrong with that. I would however encourage those who have identified or do identify with the term ‘straight acting’ to ask – why do you? How is this identification situated within a larger social narrative and context which shapes who each of us are and how we feel? If you are concerned with how others perceive your masculinity in relation to your sexuality, why is that? Given that masculinity and femininity have large, complex narratives, can you see that when you say you’re ‘straight acting’, what people take from this will never be as simple as pure, value-neutral description (whether they realise it or not)? This can be articulated by different people in different ways to serve very similar ends. A common example being dating app profiles with caveats such as ‘not as camp as I look’, pre-empting judgement from a gay audience which has a clear hierarchy of value.

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Emmerich inserts the fictional protagonist Danny into the narrative of the film in order to “provide a very easy in” for a straight audience. One can understand the desire to want your film about an incredibly important civil rights event to reach and educate as many people as possible. There’s two important problems with this however. 1 – It didn’t remotely happen that way, and 2 – It throws the non-normative queers who were there doing what they did under the bus in order to pander to those potential viewers whose acceptance comes with terms and conditions of palatability. It also raises the very important question – have queer people moved so far away from the scary, dangerous activism of the past that is now spoken of reverently, these brave heroes, that we daren’t tell the story how it was for fear of making less headway with creating queer acceptance than we could?

I would say that if LGBTQ support is *dependent* on whiteness, normative masculinity, middle-class status, conventionally attractive embodiment – all the checkboxes of Danny that make him the least marginalised of the marginalised – then it is worth very little. Further, it’s 2015. Shows and films with casts not centred on whiteness, cisness, etc. have demonstrated their ability to be both commercially and critically successful – one needs look no further than Orange is the New Black. I believe that the film would actually have had a better impact on queer rights and empathy for oppressions faced in terms of sexuality and gender if Emmerich had dared to be more accurate, rather than worrying about the most socially conservative end of the spectrum. The comparatively slow limp of transgender rights and protections demonstrates exactly what happens when we try to gain acceptance by sweeping the more difficult queers under the rug. The irony that the charity ‘Stonewall’ only added trans to its remit this year is ridiculously long overdue, but not surprising due to this homonormative precedent. The very fact that Emmerich has been so heavily criticised is evidence that a mainstream audience could handle the more complex intersections of marginality the real historical figures experienced.

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It’s a fair question to ask what the problem with Danny’s role in the narrative is. Stonewall is famous for being a turning point, the explosive tipping point for LGBT (but let’s be honest, mainly G) rights. Therefore it’s easy to assume that the ‘mainstream gays’ who are visible and in many Western contexts doing relatively okay were also there. Not so. Those men and women with same-sex attraction in the 1960s who could hide it, often did. The straight actors were only to peer out of their closets after the radical queers had fought for some space for them. Emmerich would’ve done well to realise this, and recognise that his film had a duty to the queers still most marginalised today who fought *because* they had no other choice. Stonewall is a story for all queers, for all people to be inspired by, but not at the expense of de-centring the real, brave people who fought.

It’s very important then, to recognise the difference between what being ‘straight acting’ can mean in the world, and what it means when it’s inserted into this film which will be taken by many people as a representation of what happened. This may explain then, why when a historian of Stonewall, the only surviving member of the Stonewall  Street Youth, and other queer writers and experts were asked what they thought of the premier – the results were overwhelmingly damning. Emmerich has also said “as a director you have to put yourself in your movies, and I’m white and gay”. Maybe, just maybe, this film wasn’t about you, Roland. Maybe it also wasn’t about potential audience members who would deem The Stonewall Riots unacceptable if they saw them led by (as Michelson says) “non-white transgender people, genderqueer individuals, drag queens, butch dykes and sissy men”. Maybe that’s why Miss Major Griffen-Gracy, one of the few survivors of the Riot itself, said “How dare they do this again” of the film.

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Miss Major – Photograph credit to Annalese Ophelian.

It’s ironic that the historian David Carter explains that whilst he liked the characterisation of Ray, in reality Raymond Castro was “a very masculine guy, a generous guy – and very conservative-looking. He wasn’t effeminate – he never went in drag. He didn’t prostitute himself, either”. Emmerich had an opportunity to include a character who embodied a normative masculinity, whilst retaining historical accuracy – a bit of a godsend given that was important to him in this historical sea of queers that were more difficult to market. Why that wasn’t done is open to speculation. But if telling the story of Stonewall was important to Emmerich, as he says it was, but positioning the trans women of colour who were absolutely central to the events (Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Riviera, Stormé DeLarverie, and the aforementioned Miss Major) as the *main* characters, the central narrative, was too difficult… then maybe he shouldn’t have been the person to make this film.

1 – Whilst this term has been used in different ways in different contexts, the most common, and how I use it here, was popularised by Lisa Duggan in unpacking how heteronormativity can be assimilated into LGBT culture, practices, and identities. Heteronormativity is (often insidious or unconsciously manifested) practice that positions straightness, cisness, and normative gender and sexual roles as ‘normal’. That isn’t to say there is necessarily an explicit articulation of homophobia etc., but that in positioning particular qualities as normal (rather than common, or relatively frequent) one includes a moral dimension to the description – that positions particular others as ‘not normal’. Heteronormativity can manifest in such simple interactions many non-straight people will have experienced – an acquaintance say, asking a guy ‘do you have a girlfriend?’ or a girl ‘do you have a boyfriend?’ – the assumption of heterosexuality. In a sense then, homonormativity is exemplified by, for example, gay white men who have a distaste for campness, drag, gender-bending, and other aspects of queer culture that are distinctly un-normative. Plus of course, it’s never as simple as saying that a person *is* or *is not* hetero/homonormative – people articulate multiple and complex views, and may comfortably celebrate radical queerness in some contexts whilst wishing to distance themselves or tactically ‘tone it down’ in others. What this means for how queerness is considered by the wider population is an interesting point to consider.

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Film, LGBT, News, Popular Culture, Sexuality, The gender binary, Transgender

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A Response to the Idea ‘It’s Time to Take the T out of LGBT’

On Thursday 10th September 2015, Katie Glover (who is transgender) wrote an article for the Independent titled ‘Why it’s Time to take the ‘T’ out of LGBT’. I think that this article is misguided and unhelpful for different aspects of queer communities, and I will spell out why.

The article starts with discussion of the idea that people can get confused by LGBT, due to confusion and conflation between sexuality and gender identity (one simple, but useful one liner I’ve heard to explain this is “sexuality is who you go to bed with, gender identity is who you go to bed as” – later in the article, Glover misquotes this idea). This is a point dealt with by education, as the association between gender identity and sexuality has been around a lot longer than any kind of LGBT movement has. That association is in part because of how labels like ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ are understood with reference to an individuals gender, so as to understand whether they’re attracted to ‘the same or the opposite sex’ (imperfect though such language is). The article claims “being transgender is at the very least heavily associated with sexual orientation, when in fact it stands completely in isolation” – which is patently untrue. For example, if you are assigned male at birth, and you’re attracted to men, and are read socially as male, then you are going to be considered a gay or bisexual or otherwise non-straight man if you give off any social cues of involvement with a man. Even if you identify as a woman. If you are read socially as a woman, then you become read as heterosexual. Indeed, how an individual defines their sexuality may change with a gender transition even if who they’re actually attracted to does not. Also, to consider things historically, sexuality and gender identity were originally conflated under the idea of ‘inversion’, or a ‘woman’s soul in a man’s body’ as an explanation for same gender attraction – yet this narrative is now far more associated with trans.

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Glover moves to discuss how Caitlyn Jenner used to believe that marriage was defined as between one man and one woman, and suggests that because ‘gay issues aren’t trans’ people’s turf’ they won’t necessarily be supportive. I would argue that the vast majority of transgender people are supportive of sexuality minority rights (Glover keeps saying ‘gay marriage’, and even says “gay people… make up three quarters of the LGBT title”, such bisexual erasure is astonishing). The reason why is because trans people often have a first hand understanding of what it feels like to not be accepted, and face stigma and discrimination in various ways. There is a sense of empathy there, together with powerful historical context where the progress of LGB acceptance has moved faster than for transgender. This is ironic given the huge support that LGB folk have had from trans people. The Stonewall Riots are the best example of this, and have been much discussed given the critical response the upcoming film has received for its erasure of transgender women of colour. Reactions like Ellen’s – surprise that Caitlyn wouldn’t have a stronger voice supporting other marginalised people, given her relative privilege and platform – are to be encouraged.

Glover demonstrates a lack of nuanced understanding of queer politics or history in suggesting that the fracturing of the LGBT moniker is progress. The term obviously covers a very wide range of people, with views that can often directly contradict, and with wildly different views about how things ‘should’ be. It’s worth noting that being something, such as gay, bisexual, or trans – certainly does make you the authority on your own experience. It doesn’t make you an authority on the community. That tends to come with many years of work, involvement, reading, and listening. The vast majority of the time that comes from someone directly within a given demographic, but not necessarily. I know there are certainly straight trans people, indeed, trans academics, who have far more nuanced understandings of gay rights than the majority of gay people. Further, Glover makes the unsubstantiated claim that “In fact, it’s been estimated that the number of trans people who are gay is only about the same as in the wider population.” As an academic of gender and sexuality, getting numbers on this stuff is very difficult, and estimates can vary widely. However from my own fieldwork as well as the discussions from dozens of articles on transgender, it seems to me that flexibility and fluidity with sexuality amongst trans people is considerably more common than in the wider population (I can’t be sure that all references are accessible to everyone, but some material can be found here, here, here, and here). The potential reasons for this are beyond this article, though also we have to ask – does this even matter? If there were few non-straight trans people, would trans ignorance or ambivalence on issues of sexuality (which in reality is far less common than ignorance or ambivalence on trans issues from LGB people) not be something we should aim to challenge and rectify? As for all?

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In articulating that LGB and T might be getting “too close for comfort”, Glover reveals one of the most problematic and damaging things within LGBTQ community – that is, ignorance and distaste from some for those different from themselves, when we might otherwise be brought together over a sense of solidarity in seeking respect and equality. Some of the greatest successes of LGBTQ liberation have been due to cooperation – for example, whilst not decimated in anything like the same way, lesbian activists of the 1980s shouldered an enormous amount of the struggle in fighting for the HIV/AIDS crisis experienced by non-straight men to be taken seriously. And of course, how trans activists at Stonewall put LGB rights on the map.

We do find people who exist within LGBT who exhibit a self-interested, tribalist approach. Those gay men with zero interest in misogyny, racism, ableism or transphobia spring to mind with a wince, because they’re not affected.  Small minded identity politics which try to scrape acceptance by distancing from any other marginalised groups, in effect trying to get a ticket to ‘mainstream’ society by propping up a status quo which tells everyone that being straight is ‘normal’. Being white is ‘normal’. Being cis is ‘normal’ – positioning everyone who isn’t, as not quite as good. None of this provides a compelling reason for distancing LGB from T, but gives good reason for there to be more dialogue within LGBTQ about our different issues in order to improve society for all.

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LGBT, News, Transgender

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On Caitlyn Jenner’s Coming Out as Transgender

(Note – at the time of writing, Jenner explicitly stated in the interview that she was still using male pronouns, however this has since been updated to reflect a respect for her name and identity).

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On 24th April, Caitlyn Jenner ended media speculation by giving an interview to Diane Sawyer with ABC, announcing to the world that she is a transgender woman. As of 6.00 am Saturday 25th April GMT 2015 the full interview is still elusive (in the UK), with this 15 minute poor quality excerpt the longest I could find. Some high quality, short clips are found here. However I’ll be commenting on and synthesising the various reports and clips on and from the interview available so far.

We still identify as female. And that’s very hard for Bruce Jenner to say. ‘Cause why? I don’t want to disappoint people.

 Caitlyn Jenner

There’s a range of different things we can learn from this interview. The first thing is that a lot of people don’t appreciate what a big deal medical transitions are for trans people – emotionally, physically, and in most of the world, financially. Jenner literally laughs off the fact that some ‘sceptics’ suggest that this coming out could be a bid for attention, related to her part in the reality TV series Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Are you telling me I’m going to go through a complete gender change, okay, and go through everything you need to *do* that, for the show? Sorry Diane, it ain’t happening!

Caitlyn Jenner

In addition to this, Jenner revealed she accessed hormones and facial surgery in the 1980s – being trans is not something new to Jenner herself, putting such ignorant cynicism to rest immediately. Her transition was ceased in 1990, after meeting her later wife of 23 years, Kris Kardashian. And in terms of ‘why now?’, she states unequivocally how she couldn’t hide this any longer. Jenner also made the points that fears over hurting her children meant she lost her nerve with her first attempts with medical and social transition, and that she and Kris might’ve still been together (they divorced in December 2014) if she had been ‘able to deal with it better’.

Which brings us to another important point that Jenner clarifies – how her sexuality has nothing to do with her gender identity. That identifying as a woman does not mean that she is attracted to men. Sawyer slowly walks through the logic of this – ‘if you are assigned male… and you become female… but you like women… are you a lesbian? are you a heterosexual… who…?’ Brenner cuts her off brilliantly, saying ‘you’re going back to the sex thing and it’s apples and oranges!’.

Whilst not discussed, it raised the question – how does a person’s gender identity relate to the sexuality of their partner? The answer is that it doesn’t, because whilst sexuality labels are most often used to signpost who a person sleeps with, these *labels* are also about identity. For instance, not all men who have sex with men identify as gay, and this is very important to recognise, in terms of both respect, and when conducting studies on sexual health. As a further example, if a person assigned male at birth comes out to her wife as a transgender woman, this doesn’t retroactively ‘turn’ the wife into a lesbian (assuming she was straight in the first place, and not bisexual for example…!). Also if the wife is still attracted to her transgender partner, still in love with her, that doesn’t mean she’s attracted to other women. It is an example of a straight-identified cisgender woman in what could be viewed as a lesbian, or same sex relationship… even if neither person, given their histories, identifies as a lesbian. But as long as one grasps the initial point that sexuality and gender identity are independent, and that labels aren’t gospel and depend on the person and situation rather than being a ‘neutral’ expression of ‘fact’, the rest can be negotiated from there.

For brevity’s sake, I don’t want to focus on the reactions of Jenner’s family, or the story of Jenner’s youth and athletic successes. The negotiation of significant personal issues is never easy, and the horrific marginalisation and ‘joke’ status that transgender people can still be relegated to isn’t up for debate. Jenner’s wealth and celebrity privileges don’t negate that coming out was a very brave thing to do, and she also makes it clear that she wants to do some good and help people by being open about her transition. She makes the point that her foothold in the reality television world gives her a powerful tool with which to raise awareness, even if not becoming an expert activist overnight.

The Twitter responses to the interview using the hashtag #BruceJennerABC have been overwhelmingly positive, though as S. Bear Bergman poignantly put it, “wondering who else should get 2 hrs on prime time TV?” whilst linking the list of unlawfully killed transgender people on Wikipedia, undoubtedly a list that under-represents. It was also pointed out by Kate Bornstein how the interview didn’t mention non-binary identities at all. Whilst not necessarily part of Jenner’s experience of gender, such a powerful opportunity for visibility and education could have benefited from greater breadth of reflection on the multi-facetedness of transgender lives. Jenner’s fame, wealth, and success position her as amongst the least vulnerable of transgender people, who collectively are still in dire need of protection, representation, access to services, and understanding. Let’s hope that Caitlyn Jenner inspires increased and better quality allyship.

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News, Popular Culture, Socialisation, The gender binary, Transgender, Women

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The Inequality of Civil Partnerships and Marriage Persists

In the UK that is. I want to talk about that.

So let’s start by going back to 2004, when the Civil Partnership Act was brought about (well, gained Royal Assent anyway. The first actual UK civil partnership happened on 5th December 2005). I’m not going to talk about why it was a bad thing for there to be nothing in place for LGBTQ people before this (and all the rights it gave), but I will outline why it still wasn’t good enough. This isn’t necessarily all that obvious for a lot of people and deserves making clear. I’ll then move on to what the problems are that STILL remain with the new marriage set up! This is one of those rare instances when I hope that the contents of this post don’t age all that well. I hope I’ll be able to look back on this and think about how things have changed for the better. There’s all sorts of finickity angles this article could’ve taken, and a lot more to say. But it’s long enough as it is. I’ve tried to stick to what I see as core issues.

Many of the problems with the old Civil Partnership Act and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 are due to their inability to account for transgender people, but we’ll get to that.

One of the most obvious ways in which the ‘separate but equal’ claim regarding civil partnerships vs. marriage is the disservice done to any LGBTQ person who might be religious. It was prohibited for civil partnerships to contain religious readings, music (such as hymns) or symbols. This is still the case actually, which is interesting given that not every organised religious practice (or even every organised Christian practice) opposes ‘same sex’ marriage – just certain major ones such as the Catholic Church, and the Church of England. Reformed Judaism and (some) churches following Quakerism for example were supportive of same-sex unions, but the government still deemed it a matter of law to decide how a civil partnership could be conducted in terms of religious content.

Okay, okay. So the government (eventually) recognised this was bad, so in 2011 after the Equality Act of the previous year, civil partnerships could now take place in religious venues – though in accordance with the protection of (homophobic) religious freedom, places of worship could not be compelled to conduct civil partnerships. However, the costs and administration created large and unequal barriers for willing places of worship to be positioned to legally conduct civil partnerships, even when they already did marriages, which makes… no sense.

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Credit to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/ (under creative commons)

Arguably more serious though was the financial inequality that civil partnerships allowed. This video explains this very eruditely – how a widow or widower of a marriage was able to get significantly larger pensions as a result of their deceased partner, in comparison to survivors of a civil partnership ended by death. It also highlights that civil partnerships may not be recognised abroad in some countries, regardless of whether they have gay marriage or their own civil partnership equivalence, or not. Andrea Woelke (the chap in the video) also makes the valuable point that being in a civil partnership could put people in a position where they have to ‘out’ themselves when required to declare their marital status, which carries the potential to experience fear, or harm.

Whilst there are other bits and bobs that made marriage and civil partnerships fundamentally different experiences under the law, (such as the potential criteria for ending each type of union), the ugly problem of the gender binary within law is starkly revealed when looking at how the government chose to deal with marriage and civil partnerships in relation to trans people. Christine Burns talks about this, and also gives attention to the context of and interplay with the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 as well.

Up until the Gender Recognition Act (so pre-2004), trans women were still legally classified as men, and trans men were legally classified as women. The fact that people still are until dealing with the gauntlet of the Gender Recognition Certificate is not a discussion for here. What I mean to say is simply that until this time, there was no possibility of a trans person’s gender identity to be recognised under the law. This meant that a trans woman could legally marry a cis woman, because it was technically an ‘opposite sex’ marriage (and vice versa, with a trans man marrying a cis man). Many transgender people also would remain married after transitioning – rendering them legally married, yet for all visible social and personal purposes, a same-sex couple. However, the Gender Recognition Act coming in gave the government a problem – if these married transgender people could have their genders legally recognised (and therefore changed), marriages would start to exist between two men, or two women. Therefore it was made law that before a transgender person could receive a Gender Recognition Certificate, they had to divorce their partner. They could then get the GRC as a single person, and then get a civil partnership again afterwards.

It’s not like this is an immense hassle in terms of logistics? Or that it is deeply insulting or upsetting to have to do this to attain legal rights? Or that both individuals have to put the legal safety nets that marriage grants at risk in order to do this process? Except they do. And I say ‘do’ because this is still the legal status quo. Unlikely though it might be, if one partner died during the period of not being married or civilly partnered, it could quite obviously screw just about everything up. Especially if children, a co-owned or shared residence, life insurance, and pensions are involved. Whilst in theory that conversion process can happen within a day, this depends upon, as Burns puts it: “Lengthy meetings on the logistics of such a tortuous process indicated that if everyone had read the instructions and followed them to the letter, it would be possible”. But that’s a fairly sizeable ‘if’.

This is all also true the other way around. If say, you have a trans woman (legally considered male), who is straight (attracted to men), she could legally be civilly partnered. But in order to gain legal gender recognition, that would have to be dissolved first because heterosexual civil partnerships are still banned in the UK. As for how easy it might be for a trans person to have a religious marriage (rather than a civil one), within the Church of England this is apparently okay – though clergy do have the right to refuse to conduct such marriages as long as their church is still made available.

So this has brought us to where things are now. Yes, they introduced civil marriage, so now same-sex couples can get around the above stuff. Unless you’re trans where you still have to do that ridiculous get-divorced-to-get-recognised-and-get-remarried-again thing. HOWEVER. They have introduced a way for a member of a married couple to get their gender recognised without separating first. The same provision allows a civilly partnered couple involving a transgender person to simply ‘convert’ that civil partnerships into a marriage without separating first. This comes into effect on 10th December 2014. The big problems are first: if you are civilly partnered, you HAVE to change it to a civil marriage or split before anyone can get a Gender Recognition Certificate. Because no heterosexual civil partnerships, remember? Second: before a married trans person can have their gender legally recognised, their spouse has the right to veto this. Sarah Brown says:

So basically, if your spouse can’t, or won’t sign the consent form, you have to divorce them to get your rights. This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”.

Getting a GRC is a heavily involved process, and requires that a person has lived as their identified gender for at least two years. Pretty hard to do that in most marital arrangements without working out what the future holds for the relationship. As this article highlights, some partners are not supportive of their partner’s transitions, and may throw up roadblocks to try and prevent this from happening. Selfishly and delusionally hoping that by making transition considerably more torturous, their partner might decide ‘it’s not worth it’. This misunderstands transition in the same way that the government clearly has. It isn’t a choice like going on holiday, whereby not doing so makes you disappointed. Not being able to transition can cause enormous harm, or cost lives. The partner should not have any legal right to block this. Any relationship with healthy communication going on would either have already ensured that it’s fine and they’re staying together, or have already separated or begun separations. Or made a decision one way or another. This simply creates the possibility for spiteful, transition blocking action on the part of estranged partners.

Another thing there is to understand is that in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, marriage is a devolved issue. This means that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland get to make up their own minds on what they want to be allowed. The first same sex marriages will be able to occur in Scotland on 31st December 2014, for instance. Northern Ireland however has decided not to allow same-sex marriages, and will treat same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions as civil partnerships… hopefully from having read the above, you can see obvious problems with this. Public opinion is almost a dead even split, but this shouldn’t really matter. Human rights shouldn’t be put up for a vote, especially when the ones voting aren’t the ones affected.

For as long as the unions between two (or more…?) people are bound up in legal and religious anxieties about the genders of the people involved, we will never have true equality. Don’t forget that as regards non-binary people, there isn’t a single official word on what they can or can’t have.

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LGBT, Men, News, Popular Culture, Sexuality, Socialisation, The gender binary, Transgender, Women

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What Really is a ‘Pick-Up Artist’?

It’s a term some may never have heard of and others may have an inkling of the meaning, but it wasn’t until I did a little digging that I got some insight into the individuals who identify with this term. You might know that ‘pick up artists’ are guys who go about regularly trying to seduce women, perhaps with cheesy lines or a confident attitude. But it’s a little bit more involved (but not much, and in no good way).

Pick up artists, or PUAs – they really like pretentious acronym useage –  purport to use a range of (morally and technically dubious) techniques to increase their odds of getting given phone numbers, making out in a club, or getting someone to go home with them for sex. Learning these techniques and how to apply them is called ‘game’, and I’ll talk about the insidious misogyny even in just that name in just a minute.

One of the central ideas to many PUA’s ‘game’ is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. Tellingly, NLP is actually pretty difficult to define because of how ” those who started it and those involved in it use such vague and ambiguous language that NLP means different things to different people.” Wiki’s simple statement on it is that “Its creators claim a connection between the neurological processes (“neuro”), language (“linguistic”) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (“programming”) and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life.” It seems to be a combination of two things. On the one hand, changing yourself and your mental processes through the use of language in a manner similar to self-hypnosis, and on the other hand, affecting other people in a similar sort of way to create a favourable situation for yourself. Which doesn’t in any way sound coercive or morally dubious. Nope.

It’s also quite crucial to note that Neuro-Linguistic Programming is now academically understood to be a pseudoscience. As this quote from the Annual Review of Psychology  highlights: “after several years of conflicting and confusing results, Sharpley (1984, 1987) reviewed the research and concluded that there was little support for the assumptions of NLP.” Being reviews of multiple pieces of research, this obviously isn’t a claim based on one simple piece of debunking literature, even though I only cite this here.

I mean, you can’t literally be this guy. But don’t be a pick-up ‘artist’. Please. If you happen to be the guy in the photo reading, you can be this guy.

The psychology underpinning the ‘seduction community’ ultimately rests upon claims that ‘nice guys finish last’. That to attain your goal of sex with women, you can (and should) take a systematic approach that will enable you to manipulate people and situations so that you can get laid. Doing this reduces women to puzzles or challenges that have to be cracked for the sake of male gratification. This isn’t a method that is sincerely offered as a way for shy men to overcome personal difficulties and establish meaningful connections, or even engage in casual sexual fun in an egalitarian and consensual manner. You have men literally competing to see who can collect more phone numbers, or advocating a ‘technique’ whereby a man is advised to grab a girl by the throat, put a finger to his lips, and go ‘shh’. Yes, this is part of ‘game’, for some at least. By calling these techniques ‘game’, it implies that sex is something that can be won, and that the process is all just fun, not serious, no real consequences.

That last one sounds pretty outrageous right? You may have seen the particular guy who sells this idea, Julien Blanc, in the news recently when he was forced to leave Australia after his Visa was cancelled, and his pick-up seminars cancelled.

That men like Julien Blanc are able to make a living from this also highlights another important aspect – the sad extent to which men are prepared to pay huge amounts of money to people who offer the ‘secrets’ of how to succeed with women, and ‘what women really want’. For a start it rests on flawed and highly simplistic (but also highly prevalent) assumptions that men and women think in intrinsically alien ways, and that all men and all women are two broadly homogeneous groups. Many of the devices used by pick-up artists (and really, I hate this term. There is nothing artistic about what these people do) explicitly buy into such narratives. For example, ‘negging’ – defined as a deliberate self-confidence undermining insult veiled as a compliment or offhand comment, designed to make women seek that man’s approval. Because that’s apparently what women do. The comic from XKCD actually captures the idea in its entirety.

Credit: http://xkcd.com/1027/

But people actually do this! Though whilst it looks like a joke, relatively harmless sleaze that no woman would fall for, many of the devices are less detectable. Like professional con-artists, devices don’t work so well if people can tell that you’re trying to be manipulative. You might not want to give this guy the YouTube hit, but this video discusses how to, in quite predatory terms, manipulate situations to allow men to touch and kiss women without worrying about that annoying little fundamental issue of consent. He also explicitly talks about how ‘it’s easier to work the situation around to touching and kissing her when you’re the one talking, but some women just won’t shut up. When they’re talking you [men] are thinking about how to get them to have sex with you’.

Whilst NLP has been debunked, whether or not any of the techniques used actually succeed in getting numbers, or sex, is really besides the point. The point is that thinking about women in this way is inherently sexist. Manipulating women in this way is inherently sexist. This is made all the more obvious by members of forums, or local groups (somewhat fittingly and creepily called ‘lairs’) actually discussing ways to shrug off the guilt. Some of these men convince themselves that it doesn’t matter because “The average woman is 10X, no 100X more conniving than the most underhanded, slimiest pickup sleazeball on the planet.” Others don’t even care, through either a complete lack of respect or empathy, being so engrossed in succeeding at their ‘game’ that they don’t actually stop to think, or some kind of Randian philosophy that rewards unapologetic self-interest.

I’ve framed this discussion entirely around men picking up women – because of social power relations between men and women, and the way in which power and sexuality are socially constructed, this overwhelmingly makes up the majority of ‘seduction communities’. However, at least one female pick-up artist exists, and has talked about her experiences and reasoning. Whilst unpacking this would take a lot more time and thought, I feel that the bottom line is that any kind of pick-up philosophy ultimately rests upon manipulation, and the idea of people being there as a resource for you to get what you want. Which is gross. I’m certainly not saying that people can’t enjoy casual flings, or making out in clubs and bars rather than simply looking to settle down in a traditional manner. But one shouldn’t – and doesn’t have to – craft a method around murky, underhanded, or abusive ‘tactics’ in order to connect with people sexually.

 

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Feminism, Men, News, Popular Culture

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Why trigger warnings are essential…

Tumblr is fun. I’m still rather new to it all, but one aspect I’ve enjoyed is the ability to search by topic, using tags – and then scrolling through a whole bunch of often relevant and interesting subject matter.

I did this for ‘LGBT’ and one of the things that came up (*trigger warning* – attempted rape) was this.

In case you were not comfortable reading this but would like some context, behind the link is a short, personal account of a sixteen year old gay guy and his visceral description of nearly being raped but being rescued by some drag queens. The tone sets up a horrific situation whilst then expressing gratitude for the awesome ‘guardian angel’ ladies.

I had no problem with this story being posted. But I did and do have a problem with the fact that it went up with no trigger warning at all.

Here is a good explanation of what a trigger warning is.

I wrote a small message to the person who posted the piece, and received a quick reply. Below is what was said:

Me:

Hey – saw your post about the 16 year old’s experience and the saviour drag queens. Any possibility of a trigger warning being put on it? Due to some of my own life experiences it was pretty distressing to read. Thanks 🙂

Them:

I’m sorry it was distressing for you. I had considered putting a warning on it, but ultimately decided not to because I want people to read it and I’m afraid a warning will deter people from reading it, which ultimately defeats the purpose of me posting and now having re-posted it. Unfortunately, the very reasons that it’s likely distressing you are the same reasons it’s compelling to read.

So again, I’m sorry if you were offended, but I hope you understand my reasons for not going ahead with a warning. 🙂 (boldness added by GenderBen)

Okay… No. No no no no. Trigger warnings are there in order to protect the well-being of those people who need them. If a person is deterred from reading something because they have been informed of the content and see that it could be harmful to their well-being, this is a good thing. Whilst personally my reaction was relatively small from being disturbed from the post, it is vital to think about someone who has perhaps survived a sexual assault may feel on reading such a piece. Distress, depression, self-harm, and even attempted suicide are all very real possible outcomes from an individual being triggered. Such people are not the target audience. Wanting more people to read what one has posted ranks below people’s welfare in importance.

Also, for some people, whether a person feels like they are in an emotional place where they can comfortably read something or not be very time dependent. It may be the case that a survivor wishes to read something, but that ‘now is not a good time’. Trigger warnings act as a basic courtesy, which grants people agency. Often a clear title or subtitle can do this job, if an article is entirely or has a large focus on a distressing issue (for those who didn’t follow the link to the original post, this particular instance had no title).

A good way to think about trigger warnings is like when on TV you might see ‘this program contains strobe effects’ – a warning required to prevent triggering for people with types of epilepsy. Not having the warning there would be irresponsible, as the content can damage the individual’s health. The only difference here is the type of potential damage.

Unfortunately, the very reasons that it’s likely distressing you are the same reasons it’s compelling to read.

Hopefully without coming across as snarky, I think it’s fair to say that unless I take the time to personally discuss it with someone, they can’t know why something like this is distressing to me, or anyone else for that matter. Making assumptions is not so great.

It may sometimes be easy to think “I don’t see how this could possibly be triggering” – you don’t need to. A little reading around and/or empathy shows the importance of trigger warnings on a wide range of issues for a wide range of people. In the grand scheme of things, not much of the huge amount of stuff that is created and posted every day needs trigger warnings, but if it’s to do with rape or sexual assault, medical conditions and description, eating disorders, racism, homophobia, transphobia/cissexism, and ableism – then it quite likely does. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Here is a whole community blog dedicated to education and awareness about trigger warnings!

The only other point I’d like to address in the response I received – I wasn’t offended, and I’m not really sure where this interpretation came from. The original post itself certainly isn’t offensive to me. This post/response is born from the importance of putting safeguards in place to avoid harm to people.

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LGBT, News, Popular Culture, Sexuality, Socialisation, Theory Literature, Transgender, Women

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