Please go and read Tombuktu’s post on the Cedar Lounge – it is an excellent summary of the problems with the Governments Gender Recognition Advisory Group report which was published yesterday. The post also details the problems with the process and also the reaction which might be expected by the mainstream media who won’t really understand what the issues are and will end up getting some legal professional in to interpret without really getting the offence and dilemmas which will be caused to Trans people if the law is changed in the manner suggested by the report.
By lunchtime yesterday is was clear that at the launch itself that there was trouble and that many attending were extremely unhappy at the the contents and the language used in the report. The Daily Mail’s political correspondent, Niamh Lyons, tweeted that it was the most polite heckling she had ever witnessed. I have to say I have thought twice about writing my response because I’m not Trans and I don’t want to offend so I’ll limit myself and hope that Trans people and their supporters continue to come forward and explain and challenge the assumptions that have been made.
The FF/Green Government formed the Gender Recognition Advisory Group in May 2010 to look at the issues which presented themselves following the Foy case. The group was entirely composed of Civil Servants and even though they received submissions and met with many groups from the rights and LGBT communities it is very evident that they really didn’t get it if an unnamed expert hadn’t told them.
Why was there no Trans rep on committee to at least provide an alternate view if even dissenting one? When the Government formed a group to look at the options for recognition of same sex relationships GLEN got a seat at the table. The ‘Do they take Sugar’ attitude of the GRAG formation works it’s way through the report with the offending terminology used and outcomes delivered. My quick flick through it yesterday led me to one review – it reeks of Civil Servantese.
The report recommends that Trans People applying for their gender to be recognised will have to have a formal diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder with evidence of medical treatments or will have to have had Gender Reassignment Surgery. This means that one has to have had hormones and mental health treatment and assessment or gender surgery (and hormones and mental health assessment/treatment and everything else). Medical model only cos of course they know what to do eh and make it all go away? An assumption that Gender Recognition is a mental illness or something that can be chopped away. There is no understanding of the issues facing InterSex here at all. (Update- The committee said despite the submissions made the terms of reference did not permit them to examine the issues here, they also felt there was not enough research or expertise – and maybe given the potential outcome from this group Intersex people are lucky.)
The report proposes that there is a panel which people will have to appear before made up of medical and legal representatives and one other where the applicant will will be told if they are a man or woman in the eyes of the state.
I know Trans people who are married and happily so, I know others who are divorced or separated. The report recommends that those applying for Gender Recognition be required to divorce or end their Civil Partnership before they can apply. No ifs, buts or maybes there.
TENI have expressed their deep reservations at the criteria that have to be met. The ICCL comment on the critical flaw ending marriages and civil partnerships. Dearbhail McDonald reports on the launch and responses from some of those present. There will be more to come and Joan Burton can expect more representations to be made in response to the report. Unfortunately I don’t think that the people advising her will be moveable and there will always be a Sir Humphreyesque but to the challenges to the forthcoming bill.
If same sex marriage was legal in Ireland this problem would not exist. The lack of it shows how nutty the whole artificial divide between marriage and civil partnership really is.
In the meantime, while we wait for same sex marriage, instead of forcing two married people who are married, and who wish to stay married, to divorce or annul their marriage (is that even constitutional?) the spouses should be offered the right to elect to convert their marriage into a civil partnership on gender reassignment.
Still grossly unfair but better than the trauma of a compulsory divorce/annulment.
I have heard of fake marriages but now fake divorce (at the command of the State)!
Where is Dean Swift when you need him.
While the absence of any specifically trans representative on the GLAG is the far bigger issue, I see that when you compare the two advisory groups you so handily provide links to, there was also no representative from the Equality Authority on the GLAG (there was an Equality Authority representative on the Civil Partnership advisory group).
As a Republic or so called Republic we are treating some of our citizens very unequally. I completely agree with Suzy here that the civil service conservative, don’t rock the boat attitude is all over this report…They have produced a carbon copy of the UK act when as the last country in Europe to bring forward legislation it could have been so much more progressive. They have taken the easy way out and have produced something which will force couples to divorce, when they have no wish to do so and one half must choose between a GRC and being true to themselves or live a lie and be unrecognised legally to stay in the marriage… That is a human right and should never be a choice. They have depended on my case judgment as adequate in terms of gender protection under discrimination grounds and should really have recommended including transgender under the the ES and EE acts. Again Data Protection is seen as adequate as it stands.
Overall it’s just another reason why we need a review of the 1937 constitution, because we are developing into a country governed by a legislature that must jump through hoops making something simple complicated just to comply.
Open FM » Today’s Links // Jul 17, 2011 at 08:35
[...] Gender Recognition Report fails to recognise Please go and read Tombuktu’s post on the Cedar Lounge – it is an excellent summary of the problems with the Governments Gender Recognition Advisory Group report which was published yesterday. The post also details the problems with the process and also the reaction which might be expected by the mainstream media who won’t [...] [...]
“(Update- The committee said despite the submissions made the terms of reference did not permit them to examine the issues here, they also felt there was not enough research or expertise – and maybe given the potential outcome from this group Intersex people are lucky.)”
I take some issue with the idea that due to the ignorance of the panel and how the rest of the GRAG report came out, Intersex people are fortunate to have been excluded. Several people made submissions to GRAG with simple ideas of how IS people could be included and granted recognition. No inclusion means there is no ability for an IS person to change their birth cert (unless somehow they can reach the other criteria, which by their nature of being IS they are excluded from obtaining). There is nothing ‘worse’ then no recognition. It wouldn’t have been an insurmountable task for the group to research the topic and or make a provision for IS people. They just didn’t bother.
Thank you for the rest of this article, though I think we need to be clear – any provision actually would have been better then no provision and there is expertise available in Ireland regarding knowledge of IS issues, by both IS people themselves, advocates, allies and those interested in human rights. Those people just weren’t included in drafting this document.
Firstly I want to say in relation to the Gender Recognition Advisory Group (GRAG) report launched last Thursday by the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton TD, I am both delighted and welcome the Ministers actions in relation to only allow people who were medically diagnosed of suffering with “GID” Gender Identity Disorder to change and have their rightful gender legally recognised on their birth certificate,
secondly in relation to the trans community whereby over the pass view days I have being reading were trans people are angry towards the medical criteria within the report, let me state one very clear fact to all trans transgender people out there, God created two genders in life, male and female; he gave the male a penis and the female a vagina, so how on God’s name can a transgender person who were assigned a male penis at birth, then dresses and act as a female in reality expect the state to legally recognize them as being female, when they have no intention of ever being medically diagnosed, commencing on hormonal treatment or undergoing an forum of medical operation to have the penis surgically removed and reconstructed in to the female genatila, for the whole purpose to why the Gender Recognition Advisory Group were set up in the first place were to legally recognise people who are or have undergoing such medical procedures, whereby have being medically diagnosed, have commenced on hormonal treatment and are or have undergone the full “GRS” Gender Reassignment Surgery,
Personally I don’t have an issues with transgender people, but If a transgender person being male or female feel this strong about their identity and wish to life their lives as they feel fit, then do so, it’s a free country, but don’t expect the state to treat or recognizes you as that gender when you don’t have the right gender parts,
Jackamo, I was being a bit flippant regarding the approach (lack of ) taken by GRAG to IS issues given the response of TG people to the report and my own reading of it – of course I would have been much happier if the report did cover issues affecting IS – but would be even happier if the experts that GRAG did talk to were identified and if the group was more inclusive of TG/IS expertise in it’s actual membership.
The Austrian Administrative Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court recently issued a condemnation of the Ministry of the Interior which repeatedly tried to force an Austrian woman to removal her genitals before completing her official gender reassignment. The Courts, in a very swift decision, said that such an action was unlawful.
The only decisive factors, the Court went on to say, were the fact that the woman was a transsexual and that she had lived and worked in the appearance of a woman for many years.
I have no doubt that the European Court of Human Rights would take the same view.
European law treats male and female as equals so what does it matter if there is an “M” or an “F” on a passport or other offical document?
It matters greatly to a woman or man who may be forcibly exposed as a transsexual at an official check. Does it really matter that much to anyone else?
In relation to God many people regard God as neither male or female so what letter should we out on God’s passport?
pp Dean Swift
In Australia those applying for passports have a new gender option X (Indeterminate) – in addition to F and M – if applicants produce a letter from their doctor, no surgery required.
Recognition Not Pathologisation- how bad could it be? « Consider the Tea Cosy // Oct 19, 2012 at 12:59
[...] recommendations of the GRAG report indicate that it tends toward the former definition. Here’s Maman Poulet: The FF/Green [...]