I’m trying to teach my daughter to be strong, to set her sights high to believe she can do anything. But she is already learning that her government can deny her rights. That the government, which does not now, and has never had a trans MP, wields the overwhelming power to prevent her changing a piece of paper, which will continue to state ‘male’ into her distant future
I’m trying to teach my daughter to be strong, to set her sights high to believe she can do anything. But she is already learning that her government can deny her rights. That the government, which does not now, and has never had a trans MP, wields the overwhelming power to prevent her changing a piece of paper, which will continue to state ‘male’ into her distant future
Find out more from our conversations in this week with women’s refuge groups, academics, and people with lived experience.
We change the rules to make families possible. The UK’s first specialist fertility law team, we have leading expertise and unrivalled experience in surrogacy, assisted reproduction and family law disputes involving modern families. We believe that everyone deserves the chance of a family, and that children thrive with love and confidence no matter what their family structure or how they came into the world. We find solutions for modern families, thinking outside the box and giving nurturing care through exceptional professional service. We are ranked by Legal 500 among the top family law firms in the UK and have handled many of the UK’s leading cases on surrogacy, assisted reproduction and LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) parenting. In 2016 we won a Solicitors Journal Award for Family Team of the Year. In 2015 we were nominated as Family Law Firm of the Year at the Family Law Awards, and for the Legal 500 special awards for excellence. Well-known boundary-pushers, we have changed law and policy through our cases, our campaigning work and our non-profit surrogacy agency Brilliant Beginnings. In May 2015, the Times ran a feature about our groundbreaking work: 'It's all about changing lives - and the law'. We work with families all over the world from our new offices in central London and the New Forest.
‘Self ID’ was the unfortunate name chosen for what is merely simplification. But the purpose and effect of the GRA will remain what it always was: a means for trans people — and trans people alone — to update a document that otherwise doesn’t describe their lived reality and exposes them to discrimination.
This change will remove the complex and prohibitive barriers, including cost, which disproportionately affect disabled, BAME, unemployed and other trans women who are the most vulnerable. It will bring our legal process in line with the way we already behave as a society. We do not believe that it will impact the safety and protections that women have, and need, nor will it affect the Equalities Act 2010.
My child and all trans kids know way too much about hate, about discrimination, about cruelty, about rejection. I’m trying to teach my daughter to be strong, to set her sights high to believe she can do anything. But she is already learning that her government can deny her rights. That the government, which does not now, and has never had a trans MP, wields the overwhelming power to prevent her changing a piece of paper, which will continue to state ‘male’ into her distant future.
