Yesterday the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill passed its final stage in the House of Lords, making same-sex marriage legal in England and Wales.
Jack Saffery-Rowe is LGBT officer at Royal Holloway University
Yesterday the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill passed its final stage in the House of Lords, making same-sex marriage legal in England and Wales.
This is a huge victory for the LGBT movement after 20 years of campaigning.
Same-sex couples can now have their relationship legally recognised on an equal footing to opposite-sex couples for the first time in British history.
But this is not the final battle.
Throughout the height of campaigning for the bill trans* people have been almost entirely erased from the discussion, most visibly by Stonewall.
Stonewall is the leading LGB rights organisation in the UK, but has had the pomposity to call this bill ‘equal’ marriage.
However we do not have truly equal marriage, and won’t do so for a long time.
We must fight for non-binary and poly* relationships to be legally recognised in the same way.
The impact that this bill has on trans* people is complex.
Before the bill trans* people who were in a marriage or a civil partnership and wanted their affirmed gender legally recognised (for example, for pensions) by having it changed on their birth certificate, were forced to end the marriage or civil partnership, get the Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) (which changes the birth certificate), and then enter into the ‘other’ form – the option of ‘marriage’ or of ‘civil partnership’ permitted to the affirmed gender of the individual.
For a GRC to be issued, the trans* person has to be living as their affirmed gender for two years, which implies to a reasonable degree of certainty that their spouse would be aware of their transition.
Now, instead of a divorce, for the GRC to be issued and the trans* person to have their birth certificate changed the spouse has to consent to their partner being granted a GRC and the conversion of the union between opposite and same sex. This form of consent requires a statutory declaration signed in front of a solicitor, which also costs money.
Given that 51 per cent of trans* people who come out to their partner or spouse can expect a negative reaction in the long term, 29 per cent of trans* people stated that their spouse has made getting a divorce difficult, and 44 per cent of partners and spouses have actively attempted to prevent their trans* partner from transitioning, this creates a situation in which trans* people could be blocked from having their affirmed gender legally recognised by a partner, possibly even a partner that they are trying to divorce.
Worst still, some have claimed that this is the final frontier of queer rights and that we are now equal. This is not the case. LGB and T people are still the subject of some of the most violent attacks in the UK.
In June 2012, gay teenager Steven Simpson was burnt to death for being gay and autistic at his 18th birthday party by Jordan Sheard. Sheard received just three and a half years imprisonment for Steven’s murder. Sheard’s lawyer described it as “the result of a criminally stupid prank that went wrong in a bad way.”
The verdict of manslaughter was widely condemned; however nothing further has come of it.
Lucy Meadows was a school teacher who was hounded by the right-wing press for being a trans woman. On 19 March this year, Lucy was found dead in her home after committing suicide. The response from the press, primarily the Daily Mail and its bigot-in-chief Richard Littlejohn was entirely unapologetic.
This was just one of a string of transphobic attacks in recent years.
These deaths are a call to arms for the fight for true equality. Same-sex marriage is limited and will do little to curb this trend of violence against queer people. Fighting homophobia, biphobia and, most of all, transphobia should be the priority in our movement over the coming years.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
33 Responses to “We have won same-sex marriage. Now we must fight for trans* rights”
GO
“You also need to remember that legal gender recognition can only be applied for once the trans* person has been living full-time as that gender for at least two years. This isn’t a sudden surprise being sprung on the partner, they’ve had two years to get out of the marriage if they object.”
OK, this is a good point. Still, when it comes to making or changing a contract, isn’t it a general principle that any party has the right to back out right up to the moment the contract is made or changed? There’s something distinctly uncomfortable about the idea that someone could have their own marriage contract rewritten against their will because ‘if they didn’t like it they should have done something sooner’.
“Imagine a messy divorce where the cis spouse drags proceedings out for years with unreasonable demands. The trans* spouse is effectively bullied into agreeing to them in order to get their human rights.”
You’re assuming there *is* a cis spouse. But surely the spouse of the person seeking to have their newly-affirmed gender legally recognized might also be trans*?
“Or imagine a domestic abuse victim being told “yes of course ill give consent to your gender recognition just as soon as I know you love me”. You’ve just handed the abuser yet another means of control.”
So the idea is that a heterosexual male abuser (say) might tell his wife, who is seeking legal recognition for a male gender identity: “do as I say and I’ll consent to your gender recognition and stay with you as a homosexual partner in a same-sex marriage”? Well OK, but if we’re assuming abusers might be willing to use the fundamentals of their marriage contract and their own identity as bargaining chips in this way, we could just as easily imagine abusers using the threat legally changing their own gender identity as a means of control. So the problem theoretically arises either way.
“No spousal consent is needed for anything else at all, in fact such requirements have all been abolished over time as they are oppressive.”
This just isn’t true. In fact at least one requirement for spousal consent has been *introduced* in recent decades because the *absence* of such a requirement was oppressive: the requirement for a spouse to consent to sex. I don’t see why a requirement for a spouse to consent to fundamental changes to their own marriage contract is any less reasonable.
Jess Key
“when it comes to making or changing a contract, isn’t it a general principle that any party has the right to back out right up to the moment the contract is made or changed?”
By your logic if a Catholic marries another Catholic in a Catholic wedding then there has to be spousal consent if one decides to drop religion or convert to a different denomination. Or if I marry an accountant I should be able to veto their career change. Or if I marry a blonde person then I should be able to veto their use of brown hair dye. Similarly your logic states that an employer should be able to veto a waiter becoming a waitress.
Also you are forgetting that its already changed. Their name has changed for a start. Their genitals may have changed too. All you are able to prevent if their human rights being granted.
Also in every other contract if there is a breach or change made to it that you don’t consent to then you can get out of it afterwards. For marriage this is an option in the form of divorce. If the spouse doesn’t like the change they can get out of the marriage, but you shouldn’t be able to deny them their human rights while you get around to it.
“You’re assuming there *is* a cis spouse. But surely the spouse of the person seeking to have their newly-affirmed gender legally recognized might also be trans*?”
True, but my argument stands even if the spouse is also trans*.
“This just isn’t true. In fact at least one requirement for spousal consent has been *introduced* in recent decades because the *absence* of such a requirement was oppressive: the requirement for a spouse to consent to sex. I don’t see why a requirement for a spouse to consent to fundamental changes to their own marriage contract is any less reasonable.”
Do you really think comparing rape with gender change is a good comparison? Do you believe spouses need protecting from trans* people in the same manner that they need protecting from rapists? you make a good point tho – every husband who married before that point had their marriage contract rewritten to remove presumption of consent to sex. This change in thousands of marriage contracts was done to protect the human rights of the wives. Similarly a very minor change to a marriage contract should be fine to protect the human rights of a trans* spouse – especially as name, appearance, genitals and social role may have already changed.
Demon Teddy Bear
“Jack Saffery-Rowe” … now there’s a working-class name! Yes, yes, we must fight for every perversion, however disgusting. What we must not do, never do, ever do, is … ask the people.
Fascinating to see hate and elitism so closely intertwined.
Jess Key
“we could just as easily imagine abusers using the threat legally changing their own gender identity as a means of control. So the problem theoretically arises either way.”
That person could already do it, but would need a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 2 years living full time to get legal recognition. It hardly counts as a ‘threat’ when you are threatening to have a medical condition treated…
GO
“Yes, yes, we must fight for every perversion, however disgusting.”
Nice.
“What we must not do, never do, ever do, is … ask the people.”
You’ve got a point, actually. When it comes to human rights issues, ‘asking the people’ is pretty irrelevant. No show-of-hands mandate is sufficient to justify denying anyone their rights. That’s why we don’t think that (say) slavery should be legal in places where a majority of people are in favour of slavery. If it takes an ‘elite’ group of politicians, judges etc. to push through laws protecting basic rights, so be it. Democracy and mob rule are not the same thing.