Trans+ (Non)Citizenship on TERF Island

The UK has been pejoratively nicknamed ‘TERF Island’ – with TERF standing for ‘Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist’ – in online trans+ circles due to the vocal support for gender critical feminism in the UK and a climate which has been perceived as becoming increasingly hostile to trans and nonbinary (henceforth trans+) people. In this paper, I argue that at least three kinds of citizenship – legal citizenship, medicolegal citizenship, and citizenship-as-belonging – are relevant for understanding trans+ people’s political (non)citizenship in the UK. Using these frameworks, I question whether a person can be a full citizen, with the accompanying rights and sense of belonging that that implies, if they are unable to access legal gender recognition. Having set out these citizenship paradigms and their limitations for trans+ people, I look at the Gender Recognition Act (2004) and its reformation. Until 2004, Britain was one of four European countries which did not provide recognition of trans+ people’s lived genders. The inability to change key legal documents affected trans+ people’s legal rights surrounding work and welfare, parenting and relationships, access to healthcare, and presence in public space, such as toilets and changing rooms. The Gender Recognition Act (2004) allowed people to change their legal gender, including on birth and death certificates, and to marry, with records noting their gender accurately. While this legislation was comparatively progressive in 2004, trans+ people felt that it was no longer fit for purpose in the late 2010s. Applicants for a Gender Recognition Certificate had to submit medical and administrative evidence of their transition history and lived gender, which would be delivered to a panel, who would judge the suitability of the application without ever meeting the applicant. Applicants had to pay £140 to apply and could have their application rejected without receiving an explanation as to why. Examining the initial formation of the GRA, I argue that legal citizenship as oneself is often contingent on medicalised and cissexist understandings of what it means to be trans+. Zooming in on the debates following the consultation to reform the Gender Recognition Act (2004), I then argue that these debates became debates about trans+ people as citizens worthy of full rights and existence in public space.