Oral evidence: Transgender Equality Inquiry, HC 390Tuesday 13 October 2015
Oral evidence, 13 October 2015.
Witnesses
Christie Elan‑Cane, Non-Gendered campaigner, and Sue Pascoe gave evidence.
Chair
Thank you very much, and can I apologise for our late running? We may have another individual coming to give evidence as well; they have been delayed in the traffic. On behalf of the Committee, can I thank you for coming along today and for giving your time and your expertise to the inquiry that we are holding? Could I ask you to just introduce yourselves with your name and your organisation before we start?
Sue Pascoe
My name is Sue Pascoe and I am representing myself. Christie Elan‑Cane: My name is Christie Elan‑Cane and I run a campaign called Non‑Gendered, Fighting for Legal Recognition. I have been working for more than 20 years to try to establish a third space outside the gendered societal structure. I have been involved in the development of the trans equality action plan a few years ago, and it was through my campaign that there was a recent series of Early Day Motions tabled in Parliament. The most recent one attracted the support of 80 MPs. I wish that I had been on the earlier panel, because some of the things regarding “X” passports I could have explained. I have been trying to get an “X” passport for several years and am currently in the process of a preliminary pre‑action protocol of taking legal action to try to get my passport changed to an “X” passport.
Chair
I am sure we can cover off some of those issues, if you would like to, in this session as well.
Ben Howlett
Thank you ever so much for giving up your time to come in today. I thought it would be a warm-up question to ask about the good aspects and the bad aspects of being a trans person in the UK today. Sue, would you like to start?
Sue Pascoe
I am 55 now, and it took me until I was 54 years old to come out and have the confidence to lose pretty much everything in my life to be myself. I had to wait until my father and my mother had died, and divorce freed me from my duties to my wife, and then I could start to look at being myself. I told my wife before we were married that I had a feminine side to me, but she did not want it in our marriage and that became very difficult. I hid myself as Sue most of my adult life. I was made fun of when I grew up, and I knew with pretty much certainty that if I tried to come out when I was a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers or in Andersen, that would probably be the end of my career. I had to wait for the latter part of my life to make those transitions. It is interesting. I made my decision to become permanently Sue in July last year, and I thought that I would lose all my family, my friends, my business and my farm, be ostracised by my friends, and need to go abroad for an operation and then start a new life with a new identity. That was the basis upon which I decided to become Sue. Amazingly, it has not really been like that. Most people who perhaps have not been in my life have been fantastic and that is the general response I get—former work colleagues. It has tended to be people who have been very close to me—knew me as Graham and now see me as Sue—that find it quite hard to make that mental leap, but that will come with time. What is clear is that going back into the workplace, which I am going to try to do—I just do not know how I am going to be responded to, but I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. Graham never got to address Parliament, so this is one up for Sue.
Ben Howlett
Sue, to take up one of the points you raised about how your friends have been able to accept you as Sue now, were they able to access support networks as well? We have discussed an awful lot about individuals being able to access support networks, but do you have any examples of how the community around you have been able to access help and support at all?
Sue Pascoe
What is interesting is that as the LGB community has got more accepted in general society, coming out as trans seems to just be an explosion that has happened, both in the press and in an understanding of what it means. When I grew up, many people used to say I was a pervert: I wore female clothing, so there must be something weird and sexual that was going on. Even when I told my close friends that I was going to transition, they said to me, “Make sure that you make a decision to go all the way through, because if you do not people will just call you a pervert.” I think as people get to know me as an individual, I am just Sue now, and I am comfortable in my own skin, and I am complete and at peace with myself in a way that I was not. I lived a lie for 54 years, pretending to be Graham when inside I was dying. Now I am authentic with other people and that is what people recognise. There is a very tiny minority of people––“white van man” would be a good example––who shout strange things out of windows, but other than that I have been pleasantly surprised how nice everybody has been.
Ben Howlett
Very good. Christie, what about yourself? Christie Elan‑Cane: Good and bad. I have identified as non‑gendered now for more than 20 years. I am 58, so I am the oldest one on this panel. I cannot remember ever identifying within a gendered role, except there were just no words to describe how I was feeling when I decided that what I needed to do was to physically transition. I completed my physical transition not through the gender clinics but by arranging my own treatment and funding myself. I did not have a clue why I was doing it. I just knew that I had to do something. It was after I completed that transition that everything seemed to fall into place. That journey to get surgery, from the point that I started to do something about it when I was 26, took five years and then the whole process of going through that took two years, so I was 33 when I was able to accept my identity. I thought then that I had passed the most difficult bit, and I did not know what the next 20 years would have in store: that was trying to find a place for myself where, at that time, in 1991, 1992, the things that I was experiencing were beyond the comprehension of most people and society. I began slowly to come out to my own circle of friends and, at the time, I had quite a wide circle of friends across all categories and it was fine. I did not lose any friends. I would say that was the best, most positive time in my life. There was a situation about coming out at work, which I knew would be difficult, because I knew that they would not be able to comprehend what I was saying. There was the situation that I was forced to compromise and deny my identity when I applied for documentation. Every piece of documentation was telling me that I was something that I knew myself not to be. The consequence of coming out at work was that I ended up having to leave my job and, since then, I have found it very, very difficult to get work. That has left me, literally, hundreds of thousands of pounds worse off than if I had never disclosed my identity, if I had carried on leading a double life, which I would say is pretty detrimental. I am still not able to get any of the documentation that I need. Personally, within myself, I have never regretted my surgery. I have never regretted coming out, although I do regret the consequences. I think it is because of the work that I have been doing for all these years and getting non‑gendered into the trans equality action plan, although I was very disappointed that, in the end, it was all plan and no action, because nothing resulted from it, but at least it got things off the ground and something significant happened. It was after that that things started to change, so in the last 20 years, I would say that there has been far more bad than there has been good. However, at the same time, in my private life I have a wonderful partner, although we cannot get married, because I would need to deny my identity in order to register our partnership and I do not have the documentation. Neither of us wants us to get married under those terms, but I have been in a stable partnership and my personal life is very, very good.
Angela Crawley
This section is on your experiences of the healthcare system. Are there any areas where you would like to see things improve from your own experience, and are there any areas where you think the health service has worked well? Christie Elan‑Cane: Are you referring to transitioning or general healthcare?
Angela Crawley
I appreciate you have very different experiences, so perhaps just from your own experience, what areas of the healthcare system do you feel have been beneficial? Are there areas where the healthcare system could be improved, from your own individual experience? Christie Elan‑Cane: When I started on my personal journey and my surgery, I saw a number of different surgeons where I had to pay a fee, and they were not cheap. The first one I went to see, after taking my fee, said, “I am not doing this, because it is mutilation”. It took about half a dozen or so different surgeons before I found the right one that I was confident understood what I wanted to do, what I wanted him to do and who had the right credentials. I had seen some along the way who were prepared, but I felt that I would be placing my own safety at risk by going through them. I feel that I have had to largely educate the health professionals I have come into contact with. I have never come into contact with a gender identity clinic. I do not take hormones and that is through choice; I have never felt the need to. For some people who are non‑gendered, hormones do seem to be a significant thing, but my personal experience is that they are not, so I have never had to come into contact with the gender identity clinics. My personal experience is really as a patient for unrelated things, and I have found, more recently, it seems to be improving, although there are still gender‑specific services where I feel that there could be a lot more sensitivity. Leading up to the trans equality action plan, I did raise the issue of gender‑neutral toilets, which, at the time, seemed to be beyond the scope of anyone to do anything about. Now I am very pleased that that is being discussed, but with the bathroom facilities inevitably I have to use the disabled, and that is in the healthcare services as well. In fact, at my most recent visit to a hospital I did need to use the bathroom and I found the disabled was locked. I ended up feeling that I had to use the gendered service, because being obviously non‑disabled, I did not feel comfortable going and asking for the key and I did not really see why I had to. Also, I just could not wait, so I ended up having to use the gendered bathrooms. I find that most people now seem to be fine, but that is only very recent. I was constantly misgendered. I say my title is “Pr”. I am pleased to see the “Mx” prefix has been adopted, but I have been “Pr” for the last 20 years, so I am going to stay “Pr”. They did change my title to “Mx” and I had them change it back to “Pr”, but at least it shows that the impetus was there, that they are trying to do the right thing. This is not my personal experience, but I am hearing things about people in the situation that I was in 20 to 30 years ago, who are desperately wanting surgery but they do not fit the criteria of the trans man and trans woman and want to change into one of the accepted male or female gendered roles, and they are having horrendous experiences. I was able to bypass that system, but some people are not so lucky and those people suffer.
Angela Crawley
Okay, thank you for that. Sue, your experience is different again. You chose to go abroad to seek medical services, so do you want to discuss your own experiences?
Sue Pascoe
I went to see my GP on 14 March 2014 and he was hugely sympathetic. That was a huge thing for me to do: for the first time to go to a professional and say that I wanted to change. Within a week he had referred me to the Leeds gender identity clinic. I had the letter in my hand and I was all excited. I rang the Leeds gender identity clinic and spoke to the admissions nurse. I was expecting a few weeks, maybe a few months, and she told me the first appointment they had was in two and a half years’ time. I was gutted. She then told me that even when I had waited two and a half years, it was going to be at least two, possibly three, possibly four years beyond that before getting an operation. That was going to make me 59 or 60, and, coming out in later life, every day is precious. Quite frankly, I felt suicidal when I got that news. I picked the phone back up and spoke to them and they explained some of the ways that I might accelerate it, like going abroad. I explored going to Thailand, because I thought that that was the place where it was recognised that the expertise was, but it did not turn out like that. I went back to my GP and he referred me privately to the former head of the Leeds gender identity clinic, Dr Beaini and to the then current endocrinologist at the centre. Between the two of them that cost me £500, and I got my gender dysphoria diagnosis and my prescription for hormones. I then went back to my GP, and my GP monitored my bloods and took the private prescription and turned it into an NHS prescription. Many people do not even know that route exists, and are sitting waiting for years when they could be on the hormones and they could be transitioning; they just need to know how to work the system. The next thing was whether I was going to try to do it privately in the UK. I tried to get my health insurance to pay. As a former partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers I have a very extensive private medical insurance, and it surprised me enormously to find that they would not cover any aspect of anything to do with gender dysphoria. If I could suggest something that the Committee might wish to consider, I am not sure that it is equality to have insurance policies that discriminate against certain types of medical treatment. Effectively, I was stopped from getting that medical treatment in the UK. Sixty per cent of the Fortune 500 companies have medical insurance covering sex reassignment surgery, so I am currently fighting with the Ombudsman to try to get that money repaid.
Chair
Let me just say that obviously if something is before the court, it is not appropriate for us to discuss that, because it might be sub judice. If you could perhaps not talk about anything that is before the court at the moment.
Sue Pascoe
There is no legal action being taken.
Chair
Okay, thank you.
Sue Pascoe
It is just going to the Ombudsman.
Chair
Right.
Sue Pascoe
Once that was stopped and I knew that there was such a long delay in the NHS, I got to hear about India, which has the largest transgender community in the world; it has been there for thousands of years. It is the law of big numbers; a population of 1.2 billion gives you a very large number of transgender people, who bless the sexual vitality of Hindu weddings, so they are very well respected in that community and, in the old days, used to be the harem‑keepers—the eunuchs. Anyway, I decided to go to India and explore getting the operation. I was referred to a gentleman who was described to me as the best gender surgeon in India. I had my breasts done, I had my face operated on, and I had advanced hormone treatment and advanced gender correction surgery. All of that took me less than a year. It was 14 March when I went to my GP and 8 March 2015 was my birthgirlday. Quite frankly, if I had died the next day it would have been worth it, because I am complete and I am at peace with myself. In India, they have a completely different philosophy from the NHS here in the UK, which seems to be one of delay, resource restrictions and putting a mental stability condition that is extremely hard to meet. Conversely, in India, they work very hard in making sure that they have the right diagnosis of gender dysphoria: two psychiatrists, a magistrate; if there is a marriage involved, you have to have approval from the wife. Once that has happened, they then try to get everything done as quickly as possible to ease the social transitioning. All my treatment was in line with Indian laws and regulations and safeguards, but it was also entirely in line with the World Health Organization’s standards of care for transgender patients, which is a synthesis of all the best practices around the world and is significantly different from the NHS guidelines. I am very pleased with what happened and the reality is I had no choice. If I had had to wait for two and a half years to five years, I would not have made it. I know so many transgender people who, at one point in their lives, have attempted suicide. The figures are shocking: between 30% and 70%, dependent upon what other issues you face. I sit in a category that has a 70% suicide rate, so I am very pleased to be here. I did whatever it took to get my operation done in a timely basis to go forward with my life. I am still waiting for my first assessment appointment with the NHS and, bizarrely, despite the fact that I am fully transitioned and have had all my operations, I still cannot access electrolysis or speech therapy, because I have not had my first assessment and I cannot get into the clinical pathway. My GP is going to the GP commissioners, trying to get the funding so I can go direct.
Angela Crawley
On that basis, obviously you now present as a trans woman to health services. In both cases, have you had any issues in terms of accessing health services, in your present position? Christie Elan‑Cane: At the moment, I do not have any major health issues, but I would always try to go private, just to bypass the situations, if I can. I was ill a few years ago and, at that time, I was fortunate to be covered privately. It was nothing to do with my surgery or my transition. I must say that even now, if there was anything that I felt could be perceived as trans‑related, I would still try to avoid, because that fear is still there, even though I have not had the negative issues in the healthcare services recently. I do feel that sometimes, just because the systems are not geared up to recognise anything other than “M” or “F”, although that is changing. I have raised that with my previous GP when I had an ongoing issue with an automated sign‑in facility that asked if you were male or female, which I refused to use. I would go to the reception and say that I could not use this system and, in the end, they did get it changed and upgraded so that you could enter your date of birth instead. I found that level of support from my local practice was excellent, but then it kept breaking down and every time it broke down it seemed to divert back to how it was again. Therefore, if I had not been to the GP for several months, I would go back and find that the automated system was still asking me whether I am male or female, so it is a constant thing with a constant barrier, and that is what I am always conscious of everywhere. I would have to feel pretty ill before I would report a problem, because I would just rather get on with things than have that situation.
Angela Crawley
In your experience, would it be beneficial if we were to remove gender markers in most occasions of life? Would that make your experience better? Christie Elan‑Cane: I differ slightly from what I heard before, because I feel that in certain situations, like banking and the commercial areas, there is just no need for gender and they should just remove the question completely. As a non‑gendered person and trying to make people aware and to educate society and end the invisibility, for things like passports I would rather have an “X” than have nothing, and the healthcare services does come into that, because there will always be the assumption that you are male or female, and they will make that assumption. However, I can also see why people would prefer the question to be removed. If it is going to cause embarrassment in the healthcare services, I suppose I would prefer that the question was not there, but if I had to choose, I would rather have a third option. I am aware that other people might feel differently, but from my own personal perspective, I would rather have that option to be able to record my identity, to raise the profile of non‑gendered issues. I have recently registered with a new GP, so I am having to start all that process over again, but I have found that they are quite receptive, so I think that in the last few years something must have got through. Certainly at my old GP practice there was a third option of “Indeterminate”, so I was able to use that. It was not “X”; it was “I”. Some people read it as “Intersex”, but it was for “Indeterminate or non‑specified”. My personal preference would be to have that over having nothing at all, but I would prefer to have nothing at all than to be misgendered and forced to declare as something that I am not, just for the sake of accessing decent healthcare.
Chair
I would be interested in Sue’s answer to that as well.
Sue Pascoe
When I asked my GP to change the automated system so that I did not have to press the “Male” button, that happened within a day, but he told me that my NHS record would not change and my medical number would not change, and he apologised for that. We then worked on getting my passport as soon as possible. It took me three months to get my passport, and that needed a letter from my GP and a letter from my psychiatrist, basically saying that I had permanently transitioned to my chosen gender and that I was mentally stable. I drove up to Durham, paid £80, gave the two letters over and, a few days later, my female passport came. Quite frankly, I do not understand why we have a gender recognition process at all. What is wrong with a passport? That is what everybody else has. Why do transgender people have to have a completely different process and a two‑year timeline? If you are married, you cannot get one anyway. The only thing that it practically does different from the passport is change your birth certificate and change your tax records and your pension status. Well, for day‑to‑day life, that really is not that important, but the passport is. It is a door‑opener to services and if you go into a shop and somebody refuses to serve you, I just get my passport out and then people apologise. Once I had my passport, my medical records got changed. It was really quite nice to get a letter from the NHS asking if I wanted to have a cervical cancer test—bizarre. One of the worst experiences, though, was when I came back from India having had my operation. I needed to have some assistance with dilation and I was sent by my GP for two days into Leeds General Infirmary and despite my medical records being changed, despite everything at my GP being female, because I had been to the hospital as Graham they had me in as male. They refused to change it in the system and here I was, I had had my operation and I was really upset, and I argued very strongly about being discharged with male papers. Anyway, that caused quite a stir and then all my records everywhere in the system were changed to female, and I have never had any problem since.
Ben Howlett
There was something you said there, Sue, in relation to you going into a shop and being refused to be served. Is that something that has happened to you a number of times or is that just an anecdote?
Sue Pascoe
My presentation as a woman improves as my transition happens. When I first was going out, I was more obviously of a male face and I was refused half a dozen times. In one shop they said, “You can buy the goods, but you cannot try them on.” Another one was, “This is a female shop. Again, you can buy the goods without trying them on, and some of the assistants were really upset with what was going down and they stepped in. Now, as soon as I get my passport out, they do not say anything. I have not had that experience now for about six months. Perhaps I can just say one thing about perception. I walked around the streets for months believing that everybody thought I was a man, and I know that many transgender people have the same sort of experience. A friend of mine said, “I am going to stop the next three people who walk past you and I am going to ask them what they think”, so he stopped the first person and said, “Why did you look at Sue?” and he said, “Because Sue’s a tall person”. The next one he asked, the lady said, “Because Sue is wearing a nice dress”. The next lady said, “Because Sue is an attractive woman”, and here I was, paranoid that everybody thought I was a man, so a lot of the issues, for me, are how I react to the world, not necessarily how other people react to me. The more confident I am, the more natural I am, the easier everybody deals with me.
Chair
Part of that acceptance can come through media and press portrayal. What is your view of the way that non‑binary and transgender people are portrayed in the media now? Is it something that causes you concern or not? Christie Elan‑Cane: Can I just say I do not recognise that term? I have always used “non‑gendered”, on the basis that there have been a number of terms over the years and on the basis that there are two recognised, established genders, male and female, identifying as neither, I have always identified as non‑gendered. I feel it is a better term and, if you do not mind, that is the one I prefer to be addressed by. First of all, when this issue is portrayed, it is as a young person’s issue. As someone who has been working all this time—I am not a young person—I find that incredibly frustrating. There is no reason why it should be portrayed as a young person’s issue. It is not something that one grows out of; it is not a phase, and I feel that that that trivialises the issue. It is certainly not a lifestyle choice. With regard to trans people in the media, as someone who was outed in the media years ago, I did not know what I was letting myself in for, which sounds a bit naïve now, but I had no idea about the impact that would have on my life. You think that you are in control, but you very quickly lose control and they will portray you any way they want until you do not recognise that person. I was not really portrayed as trans, because it was two decades ago and then the connection between non‑gendered and trans had not really been established. The first trans person I can remember in the media was a soap character, Hayley Cropper. At first, it was a revelation, but I found the character was very one‑dimensional. It was this nice, inoffensive person. It felt like less of a real person than some of the other soap characters. I understand that now there are more. I have not watched any of them, but there are more trans characters appearing in soaps, so it will be interesting to see how they are portrayed. With factual portrayal, I do not watch a great deal of television now apart from the news, but I keep hearing about different things. It seems to be getting better than it was, but I am sure that during the day there is still the freak-show element, and I am sure that that has not gone away, where trans people are essentially just brought there to air their dirty linen for public ridicule. That was how it was 20 years ago and I am not sure how much that has changed. I know that there has been a lot of work going on to try to change perspective, and there is certainly more education, but I have found really that unless you are a young person the media are not interested in non‑gendered issues. They lost interest in me when they realised, 20 years ago, that I had something significant to say, rather than just someone who they could put there and say, “Look at that person”. I feel that it is portrayed as too much of a young person’s issue. I feel that it should be portrayed as something that affects everybody. There are not more people coming out because of the social difficulty, the things that I have described: that you cannot get the right documentation; that it is beyond people’s comprehension; that effectively you are out there on your own, until the advent of the internet when people started to realise that there were more of us. I always felt that I could not possibly be the only person, but I did not really have the opportunity to meet that many people, and there was no support. I think there was one trans group at the time, but definitely not supportive of this issue, which is why we are still having a lot of these discussions today. I was contacted by someone in their 50s a few weeks ago who had only just come out. This person had a family and children, but said, “It is something I have lived with all my life”. It is something that is hidden, because we are invisible, but it does not mean that we are not here.
Chair
Sue, would you add anything?
Sue Pascoe
I have deliberately gone to address the media, and I have done that for two very specific reasons. One is that, for the rest of my life, one of the things that I would really like to do is try to help other transgender people; I am in the process of establishing a charity called Gender Care UK to try to get donations to help pay for people’s operations and get past the pragmatic problems that we have in the NHS. I was looking for a platform to get some publicity and talk about transgender issues and Gender Care UK. I arranged a press release with a media consultant and ended up with press all over the world. I did not really like being called a “foxy lady” in the Sun; I quite liked being called a “dead ringer” for Caitlyn Jenner in the Mirror, but I took control of it. I approved the press release before it went out and, to date, everything that has happened around me has been hugely positive. Last night, there was a programme called Trans Lovers on Channel 4, which was just appalling, making out trans people were all escorts and all weirdos and sex perverts, sensationalising it. Conversely, we have had things like Boy Meets Girl, which is an utterly superb, sensitive programme done by the BBC. I have been involved with a pageant called Miss Transgender UK that is being filmed by Minnow Films and is due to be released on 30 November, and I just hope that it will be treated sensitively. On the whole, there seems to be a sea‑change in both the volume and the sensitivity with which things have been treated in the press, and, for me, it is very cathartic. After 54 years of hiding who I really was inside, now to be able to talk to anybody about being Sue—I am very comfortable with that.
Mrs Drummond
We have moved on a bit from what I was going to ask. I want to follow up one of Angela’s questions, but it is about perception as well. Do you feel, in the NHS, it is a generation thing? Are younger doctors perhaps more sympathetic? Do you think they have enough training? Probably Christie is better to answer this one, because she has done it for longer, but please contribute, Sue, if you wish. Christie Elan‑Cane: You mean “per”; the pronoun is “per”, can I just say?
Mrs Drummond
Sorry. Christie Elan‑Cane: My GP is about my age and so was my previous GP. Quite honestly, I have not noticed a difference with the age. Sometimes there is an older person who will understand and sometimes there is a younger person who you might have to explain something to. Most of the doctors that I have seen have tended to be old, because I will ask for the most experienced one in the practice. To be quite honest, I have not noticed that there is any difference in the age of the doctor. Maybe if I had been a younger person and had to visit the GP more, maybe that would have been different. Possibly it is because I am also that same age that they would not question it. If I was a younger person, it might be quite different.
Mrs Drummond
I am just wondering, if there is now much more recognition; they are doing some training as well, but you have not noticed. Christie Elan‑Cane: GIRES, the Gender Identity Research and Education Society, has put out some online training. I think it is available on the website of one of the GPs’ organisations. They go around and they certainly educate about the issues that I talk about of the experience of trans people in healthcare. I think Terry might have been on one of the earlier panels here. They would be the people to ask, because they go in and speak to the healthcare specialists. I do not know if that has anything to do with the improvement that I have noticed in the last few years when I have had to interact with healthcare services. Ironically, among all the different departments and public services, probably healthcare is ahead of the others, but that possibly is saying more about the others than about healthcare.
Angela Crawley
Just to follow up on a point you made earlier, which I thought was really interesting. You made the point about non‑gendered or non‑binary being presented as a young person’s “phase”. Why do you think that the media has chosen to portray it in such a way rather than as something that can happen at any age? Christie Elan‑Cane: I do not know that it is the media that are necessarily portraying it as a phase. It is just that there seems to be this obsession with youth. When non‑gendered issues ever get raised, it is focused on the explosion of younger people who are presenting and not prepared to be constrained or forced into the same straitjacket, for want of a better word, in the reassignment services that older trans people had to be. I do not want to imply that that is a bad thing, but there seems to be this obsession that it is a young person’s issue, which it is not. I think that some people might try to put across that it is a young person’s issue in a way that is sort of trivialising it, with the implication that it could be a phase. I am sure that with most people it is not a phase any more than it is a phase for someone who identifies as a trans man or a gendered trans person. Most people go through a questioning period, but having decided that you are neither male nor female, or some people prefer to define as both, in the vast majority of cases it is definitely not a phase. My main bugbear with it being portrayed as a young person’s issue is that people of my generation—basically anybody over 30—have been ignored. We have been ignored all the time and now this issue is finally, finally getting recognised, but it is portrayed as a young person’s issue and we are ignored all over again.
Chair
I am very conscious of the time, but there is one thing I have realised that I am not clear about. Can I ask what might be a final question, unless colleagues have any? I am not clear whether you have applied for gender recognition certificates, either of you. Christie Elan‑Cane: I would not be able to.
Chair
You would not be able to because there is not a non‑gendered option. Christie Elan‑Cane: That is correct.
Sue Pascoe
I have not applied because I would not get one, for two reasons. One is that I only had my final divorce hearing last week and I am waiting for the decree absolute in the next few weeks. Secondly, I have done everything within a year period rather than the two years that it says in the legislation and so they would not grant me one anyway, which is bizarre really.
Chair
Given that neither of you has a gender recognition certificate, has that caused problems?
Sue Pascoe
Nothing at all; not one issue, practically. Christie Elan‑Cane: I have been non‑gendered and since my identity is not legally recognised, I have problems anyway. I am more concerned about getting my passport and the documentation that I already have and having the provision to be able to do that. As has been alluded to today, there is a growing number of countries that now do issue “X” passports, which they can in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation rules. I want to be clear that having no gender is not an option, because sex is a mandatory field and so having a gender is implicit, either male or female. However, they make the provision of “X”, which is a non‑specified and an unspecified alternative. There is a history to that, which I will not go into, but it has been seized upon by trans people for a number of reasons, but mainly by people who do not identify as male or female. That is the option that I would like to see being adopted in the UK. You did ask the earlier panel about why this has not been done here. Under the trans equality action plan, the former Identity and Passport Service, now HMPO, did conduct a review that I will say was entirely fake. There was no serious consideration given to putting “X” on the passport. It was just an exercise in doing nothing, and I think I was the first person to see the phrase two years ago about, “We see nothing detrimental in people having to apply as male or female”, not recognising our identities. I find that so offensive. Non‑recognition has ruined my life. I feel a shadow of the person that I could have been if I had been able to lead a normal life. I am aware that I am in the autumn stages of my life and my whole life has just been a battle for the legitimate identity that other people can take for granted. I want dignity. I just want dignity. I want recognition. I want documentation that recognises who I am.
Chair
Thank you.
Sue Pascoe
It is really interesting that in many countries in Europe I can go and get a gender recognition certificate in those countries and then come back to the UK and you only need a year for it to become active. It is two years if you wait in this country or I can go to Ireland and get a certificate and come back. I explored all the processing in Liechtenstein, of all places, because it was easy to do and I did not need to be resident, and then I could get my GRC within a year. My problem has been that my wife has used this as a weapon against me. The legislation in India requires that if you are married you have to have the approval of the spouse and she refused to give it, even though we were in the process of divorce. I find it greatly offensive that I cannot look after my own life. My wife said that the divorce was happening. Her last words were, “I suppose I was not woman enough for you and you are going to be a better woman than me”, and has then used this all the way through to stop me getting my appropriate recognition.
Chair
Again, sorry, I am just conscious that there might be some sensitivities around that in terms of the court case. Look, I cannot thank you enough for your frankness today with us. It has been enormously valuable. I do not know if colleagues have any final questions just before I close I am conscious that we have overrun enormously. In that frankness you give us huge power and insight into the situation as you see it, so thank you so much for that. Can I thank you also for your submissions, which I found incredibly helpful, again, in making sure that we can be informed about the situations that you face, and it can inform the report that we develop, bring forward and put forward to the Government? I do rather like the fact that Sue has addressed Parliament today in a way that Graham has not, so we thank Sue and we thank Christie for your time and for all of your time this morning. Thank you.
Sue Pascoe
Can I just say that it is great that the UK is taking the trouble to look at these issues? We only saw in Poland a few weeks ago that they did not get the legislation through, and in many other parts of the world transgender people just do not have the rights that they have here, and it is a breath of fresh air to live in a country where it is free and we are treated with respect. Christie Elan‑Cane: But non‑gendered people are not.
Sue Pascoe
You are right.
Chair
No, and we thank you both for bringing your own individual stories here today. It has been incredibly helpful, very powerful. We all thank you. Thanks very much. Oral evidence: Transgender Equality Inquiry, HC 390 2