Bookmark Article
A non-binary pride flag on top of giant trans pride flag in Spain. (Thiago Prudêncio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
A petition urging the government to make non-binary a legally recognised gender in the UK has been signed by 122,206 people and counting.
“Have non-binary be included as an option under the GRP (Gender Recognition Panel)/GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate), in order to allow those identifying as non binary to be legally seen as their true gender identity,” the petition says. “As well as having ‘non-binary’ be seen as a valid transgender identity.”
It continues: “There is no option of ‘non-binary’ on legal forms, ignoring members of the population. This requires the government to pass a law that publicly recognises ‘non-binary’ as a part of the GRP under the Gender Recognition Act, aka, a legal and valid gender identity option.
The price drop and scrapping of reforms ignores the fact that 80 per cent of respondents to the 2018 review were in favour of demedicalising the process of obtaining a GRC, as well as a 2020 poll which showed that 57 per cent of women agreed that trans people should be able to self-identify. It also does nothing to address the prolonged, exhaustive, and excessively bureaucratic process of acquiring a certificate.
Speaking to Dazed via email, Eloise Stonborough, the associate director of policy and research at Stonewall, says: “While the reduced fee is a small step in the right direction, it still falls far short of the meaningful reform to the Gender Recognition Act that was promised by the UK government in 2018. Any application fee for a Gender Recognition Certificate creates a barrier for some trans people. It’s also important that the UK government sets out a clear timeline of the further changes to streamline the application process and move it online.”
The UK s equality watchdog said Maya Forstater s gender critical views are protected by equalities law. (Barney Cokeliss/@BCokeliss)
The UK’s equality watchdog thinks that people with anti-trans “gender critical” views should be protected by equalities law.
“We think that a ‘gender critical’ belief that ‘trans women are men and trans men are women’ is a philosophical belief which is protected under the Equality Act,” a spokesperson from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) told
PinkNews.
The watchdog’s statement comes as a landmark appeal about trans rights, brought by tax researcher Maya Forstater, concluded in London.
Forstater took her former employer, think-tank Center for Global Development (CGD), to an employment tribunal in 2019 claiming she’d been discriminated on the basis of her “gender critical” views after her contract was not renewed when colleagues became upset about her anti-trans views.
Maya Forstater s gender critical views are hate speech , a court heard today. (Nicole Jones /@satiricole)
“Gender critical” views are “hate speech” and an “existential threat to trans people rooted in insult and slander”, a UK tribunal was told today.
It was the second day of a landmark case that will determine whether it becomes legal to deadname and misgender trans people in the workplace.
The appeal has been brought by tax researcher Maya Forstater, who wants her “gender critical” view, which is that trans women are men and that she reserves the right to “say so whenever she wishes”, to be protected by the UK’s Equality Act.