News from Press for Change
Christine Burns - Gender Recognition Act Comes Into Force Tomorrow
Dear Readers
Well, here we are .. just hours away now. The Gender Recognition Act (GRA) comes into force tomorrow, Monday 4th April, and this means that the Gender Recognition Panel (GRP) will have the legal power to sit for the very first time and begin processing the fast track and overseas applications which the secretariat has been receiving since opening its doors for business at the beginning of January. All being well, the very first letters containing Gender Recognition Certificates should begin to plop onto people's doormats within a couple of weeks after the first decisions have been made.
This weekend many applicants will have received letters from the GRP secretariat, allocating a case number and personal case worker. This is quite in order and nothing to be concerned about. In fact, it shows that everything is coming together nicely, as it should.
Don't forget that, over the last three months, civil servants have had to set up a whole new department and the administrative processes to deal with applications smoothly. Over those three months they've received several hundred applications from people who qualify under the fast track and overseas recognition provisions and, at the same time, they've had to get to grips with new IT systems to support them and learn about the kinds of questions that come up over people's applications.
In July the doors will open in a similar way for "standard track" applications .. and the panel will begin making decisions on these in October.
It has been a long wait for many .. forty years in some cases .. but tomorrow we take another step into a new era.
It isn't the end of the campaign journey by a long chalk. There are many inequities still to tackle. Nevertheless we are now completing what is perhaps the most important leg of the journey for trans people in any society.
Tomorrow there will still be discrimination for people at work - six years after it was outlawed by the last round of legislation. Trans people will continue to have no legal protection against discrimination in the supply of goods, services and housing (along with many other people). Transphobic hate crime is largely unmeasured. People will still be struggling for the right to take part in competitive sports. Recent news items here have highlighted continuing uncertainties in areas such as insurance. There is very little provision for us as we age. The NHS and medical profession still needs to be dragged out of the dark ages to offer more choice and more local treatment, operating to more modern principles of partnership and respect for autonomomy. Some so-called "christians" continue to want to treat trans people in an uncivilised way; the position of married trans people isn't forgotten; newspapers haven't ceased to feel like a threat to people's privacy and safety by a long chalk; and who knows what will continue to be practiced in the name of light entertainment and advertising.
This isn't a complete list by far. The more that people seek to claim the equality promised by their fresh legal recognition, the more you can be sure that issues will be encountered. Thirty years after the Sex Discrimination Act we still have sex discrimination.
Legal change happens at one minute past midnight tonight .. in the first sixty seconds of April 4th. Social change is more evolutionary .. and will only happen because people continue to push the limits and stand up to injustice, using the law as just one of their tools, and working within organised campaign groups like Press for Change.
Legal recognition, new birth certificates, social security changes and a criminal penalty for careless or malicious handling of our private details by officials become a reality from tomorrow though. So at least let us celebrate that as it happens. And then it is back to the job in hand ...
Kindest regards
Christine Burns
Serge Nicholson - Picnic For Change - Saturday 3rd September, Soho Square, London
You are all invited to put a London based event date in your diaries:
Picnic For Change 2005 will be held on
Saturday 3rd September 1-6 pm
in Soho Square W1 London
(in the gardens of Soho Square, to the south of Tottenham Court Road tube station, Central & Northern Line)
A fab location, for Soho cafes and bars for later.
Please bring food to share, picnic cloths and blankets, and of course your loose change for the Press For Change fundraising collection bucket.
Also can anyone coming along at or near 1pm help me? and mark out our community picnic area.... and bring along garlands or ribbons on lightweight garden poles. Decorated poles are to be placed upright in the grass to mark our picnic spot. Meet me at 1pm at the mock tudor park keepers cottage in the centre of the park.
All welcome to this fun fundraising event for trans people and their friends.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Serge Nicholson
Picnic For Change 2003, 2004,2005 and Transfabulous events.