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.
33 Responses to “We have won same-sex marriage. Now we must fight for trans* rights”
Jack
I accept that it may be difficult for someone to accept that a partner they assumed was cis is actually trans, but that doesn’t mean that you should be able to tell someone that they can’t get their gender legally recognised.
Same-sex and opposite-sex marriages are now the same thing. It’s just marriage. Your sexuality isn’t ‘legally recognised’ by your marriage. Else, does the state not recognise bisexuals?
Fundamentally, I think someone’s gender identity rests with them and only them. If your partner didn’t want to be with me because I’m of a different gender to what they thought I was, then that’s their problem not mine. Only I should make decisions about my gender identity.
GO
“that doesn’t mean that you should be able to tell someone that they can’t get their gender legally recognised.”
Just to be clear: I’m certainly not suggesting you should be able to tell someone they *can’t* get their gender legally recognized. Just that, if they’re married to you, you should be able to insist that they divorce you first (since whether you want to be legally recognized as being in a marriage with a person of their affirmed gender is a matter for you).
“Same-sex and opposite-sex marriages are now the same thing. It’s just marriage.”
So why the reference in your original post to “the conversion of the union between opposite and same sex”?
“Your sexuality isn’t ‘legally recognised’ by your marriage. Else, does the state not recognise bisexuals?”
Through marriage? No, I suppose not. It recognizes people as being in sexual relationships either with a person of the same sex, or with a person of the opposite sex. That doesn’t amount to a legal recognition of their sexuality as they see it ‘in the round’, I suppose, but surely it’s fair to say that one’s marriage is nonetheless, among other things, a public and legally-recognized expression of something about one’s sexual identity? Isn’t same-sex marriage partly about recognizing that the sexual identities and relationships of gay and bisexual people are as legitimate as the sexual identities and relationships of heterosexual people?
And whatever the strict truth about whether marriage ‘legally recognizes’ one’s sexual identity, surely it’s unarguable that a gay woman who finds herself married to a man, or a heterosexual man who finds himself married to a man, is right to think that her or his public, legal, official status gives a false impression of his or her sexual identity? And that should concern us for much the same reason that it should concern us when a trans* man or woman feels her or his public, legal, official status gives a false impression of her or his gender identity.
“Fundamentally, I think someone’s gender identity rests with them and only them… Only I should make decisions about my gender identity.”
I agree – but I also think someone’s *sexual* identity rests with them and only them. And I think that precludes anyone else from having their marriage publicly, legally recognized as involving a sexual relationship with a person of this or that gender. Hence we have a conflict of rights. Again, I suggest that the balance is best struck by allowing the spouse of someone seeking legal recognition of their newly affirmed gender to decide whether or not than can happen within the context of their marriage or must happen outside it.
Space Marine Becka
I’m cis and asexual so I don’t have a horse in this race but perhaps the solution is a combination of old and new?
If the partner consents to the gender reassignment then the marriage is retained, if not the transgender partner is given a temporary certificate which can be used to obtain a divorce (with some sort of fast track provision to block the cis partner from being obstructive) since there’s definitely an irrevocable breakdown if the Cis partner is blocking the trans partner from having their gender legally recognised.
It’s not ideal but what is in such a situation?