THE BIG ISSUE
Trans identity rights
As AFC Bournemouth’s club photographer, Sophie Cook was the first transgender woman to work in football’s Premier League. She also stood for parliament, increasing Labour’s vote in the constituency by 114 per cent, only narrowly missing out on winning the seat. Yet, despite all that, changing her legal documents to reflect her gender identity hasn’t been an easy journey...
This just isn’t acceptable, I’m told. “But, I’ve come all the way here. What’s wrong?” “You need a letter from your GP, this isn’t acceptable, it says Nurse Practitioner.”
“But I never get to see my GP, she is my doctor.”
I’m due to be travelling to Paris in a matter of days and urgently need to change the name and gender marker on my passport, otherwise immigration will be wondering which fat, bald bloke I mugged for his documents.
Much is currently being made of the proposed changes to the
Gender Recognition Act 2004, and the procedures by which transgender people can obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate ( GRC).
But for many of us, this overly bureaucratic and intrusive system has little to do with every- day life.
The first step is to formally change your name. This can be done with a statutory declaration, but I did that after downloading deed poll forms. Hello to Sophie Rose Cook, officially born on the kitchen table on 21 July 2015.
Driving licence, NHS, Revenue & Customs, insurance, electoral roll all followed with relative ease either by email or letter, along with a copy of the deed poll.
For me, the overly intrusive and expensive GRC is nothing but a piece of paper. It allows you to change your birth certificate, something which I have no wish to do. The name and details on that document are part of my history and I feel no need to change that.
For some, it is vitally important but it wouldn’t change my life, and it certainly doesn’t define who I am.
Or so I thought until recent attacks on transgender rights brought the GRC into the headlines.
Standing as a Labour candidate on an all- women short list, my gender identity was brought into question. Did I have a GRC? Had I had surgery? Was I a danger to women?
I’d never wanted a GRC but now it seemed I had no choice. The first thing I needed was a letter from my doctor at the Gender Identity Clinic, so I called and was told that I had to write to him, including a cheque for £ 50 and that he would get around to it sometime. With time being of the essence, this didn’t give me much hope, given that they’d previously taken a year to post a letter.
I also needed to ask my estranged wife for permission, the spousal veto. We were in the middle of a painful divorce and asking for help from her was the last thing I felt I could do.
Then there was the matter of the £ 140 fee, which is prohibitively high, and, with many transgender people facing prejudice in employment, amounts to a financial barrier to transition.
I believe that no one should be able to make a judgment on another person’s gender identity, not the person on the bus, not the internet trolls and certainly not a panel of strangers basing their opinion purely on documents and your ability to pay. Ultimately for me, the obstacles to obtain a GRC proved to be an unwelcome distraction but for some people it is a lifeline, a safety net, a validation, a defining moment in their journey to selfacceptance. Obtaining a GRC should be as easy as changing other documentation. I’d rather have no GRCs at all.
Cis- gender people don’t need them so why should trans people? We should all have the right to self- identification free of bureaucracy and prejudice.
My passport, driving licence and tax data all record me as female. If it’s good enough for them, it should be good enough for you.