This is going to be my last post here. I wrote extensively about the visa process in order to help those who were wanting to bring their transgendered partners back to the UK. I began doing this in response to another member who said that a couple of members were acquiring information and giving nothing back in return. Since I recognised myself as being one of those he’d referred to I decided to redress the balance.
I have tried to be factual and to refrain from alluding to my own personal struggles but since this is my last post I’ve decided to ditch the niceties.
Before I begin I need to correct something. I recently posted here and said that the new beta version of the application form didn’t seem to mention a requirement for appendix 2. I was wrong. appendix 2 is required. (about which, more later)
Right... This is my personal story and a sorry tale it is! Unlike the majority of you, this is not my hobby. I got into this scene inadvertently. I would say I am a confident straight male, Very fit guy, runner, cyclist, martial artist, with a good body, I have had no problems with girls and have had several relationships with so called ‘cis’ gendered women until I came across references to transgendered females. The first one to have a major impact on me was Paris Lees, I’d thought of T-girls as blokes trying to be women before that. When I saw her I thought ‘Wow, I’d date her’ then I realised there was more to this and I read up on it, I am now party to information on transgenderism that shows it to be a scientifically proveable. (there’s plenty of info out there.)
I then decided to sign up with a few dating websites. I signed up with two, one was a Thai dating website (can’t remember which one and frankly don’t much give a shit) , the other was MyLadyboyDate.com. I connected with a lot of transgendered girls and let me tell you I was very wary, I wasn’t expecting anything, just chat. I quickly realised that the Thai site was useless, most of them couldn’t speak English and the rest were... well after something else. MyLadyboy date was different. It seemed respectable and when I posted a torso shot of my ‘rippling’ muscles, it was swiftly removed with a warning. I was actually pleased by this as it made me confident of the site managers’ intentions. (I didn’t know them then)
I did chat to a lot of girls on the site and felt very comfortable doing so with most of them. Then I came across my beautiful girl... OMG that was what I’d been waiting for... (pic included) Sorry chaps but you need to hear this, this is not a hobby. These are people who are desperate for a real relationship, they have fuck all to offer apart from their bodies!!! I couldn’t be an arsehole and go all western on her.
She had been on the site for about six months and had been let down by a few guys and then decided to pull the plug thinking that she would have to grow old slaveing her guts out just like her Mum.
I was struck by the fact she was an atheist (so am I) in the Philippines? That was unusual and made me want to know more. I contacted her and within three days I asked her to marry me... I’ don’t know... she was what I’d been looking for.... and after all the cis gendered females I’d kept at arms length...
We met one month later in the Philippines and also arranged a meeting with Simon and Maki (the owners of MyLadyboydate). My partner loved this as she was a great admirer of Maki and couldn’t believe I’d actually talked to Simon.
Ok now to the practicalities.
She’d had had her bag snatched the year before so we had to replace her basic documents, we went for NBI, TIN and then passport. Very fortunately, her mother worked with someone who knew someone who could get us a passport quickly (if we were prepared to pay double). Well of course I was so we did and the passport duly arrived.
We needed a TB test. Sorry chaps but I’m going to get a bit basic with the language from now on. I emailed a request for verification of the requirements for the TB test. No response. I did this three times with no response. Eventually I contacted the Home office and pushed them into bollocking the TB testing centre. They did (much to their credit) and got the staff to undergo retraining. I was contacted by the chief medical officer and offered a free TB test I declined, under the guise of I was not doing this to make free capital, in reality I didn’t want my lovely transgendered girl to go through the humiliation and possible backlash of ‘Oh! So it was you that made us have to go through this!’ Bullshit.
I experienced a similar problem with the English requirements. The IELTS testing centre wouldn’t get back in touch with me. After three attempts they sent me information. My girl’s English is excellent but we had to go through the bullshit. I bought the two IELTS books and discovered to my horror that they had been written by someone who was... shall we say, challenged, in the literacy department? There are grammatical errors in this fine piece of fabrication. I am flabbergasted by the audacity of ‘H.M. Gov.’ Does Queenie know what the fuck is going on? I am serious by the way, there is bullshit in there being passed off as English and they expect us to have to accept this?
While all this was going on I contacted the GRP (Gender Recognition Panel) This is the text:
To whom it may concern
Dear Sir/Madam
I am about to apply for a fiance visa to bring my Filipina girlfriend here to get married.
The complicating factor is that she is transsexual.
She began to transition at sixteen and is now twenty seven. Her female gender is not recognised in the Philippines so she will bring male gendered documents to the UK.
We have six months in which to get married once she is here.
She has not had SRS yet but we intend to do this as soon as we can afford to.
We do not intend to have a religious wedding as we would both prefer a civil marriage.
My question is twofold: Firstly, Is it possible to have her gender recognised as female given the time limit of six months that we are working against and secondly, although I am aware that transsexual marriages are now legal in the UK, are they actually occurring in practice?
We are prepared to go down the same-sex marriage route if need be but since neither of us identifies as gay we do not feel this is an appropriate route for us.
Thank you in anticipation of your response.
Yours Sincerely
The response was:
Dear Mr ....... thank you for your email.
In answer to your questions can I answer the second one first; same sex marriages are allowed and are occurring at the moment and you can do this at a register office.
In regards to your first question; your girlfriend can apply for a gender recognition certificate so that she can be recognised here as female, however she would have to comply with the criteria. Which are:
Must be 18 years or over
Have two medical reports from British doctors- Report A must be made by a registered medical practitioner or registered psychologist practising in the field of gender dysphoria and MUST include the details of her diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Report B must be made by a registered medical practitioner who may but need not practice in the field of gender dysphoria. e.g. a GP or surgeon. This report must include specific details of her treatment. e.g. hormones that she may be taking and whether she have undergone are undergoing or are planning to undergo surgery for modifying sexual characteristics.
She will need to supply sufficient documentary evidence to show that she have lived in her acquired gender for over two years:
Official documentation e.g. driving licence (both counterpart and photo ID) and passport;
Payslips or HM Revenue & Customs documents such as P60 or P45;
Department of Work and Pension or HMRC benefit letters or documents, Bank or other financial institution documents or statements
Letters from official, professional or business organisations such as from solicitors, dentists, MPs, doctors, employer or from people who know her on a personal basis;
Utility bills;
Academic documentation or certificates;
Health care or identity card including photo ID issued by an official organisation.
This list is not exhaustive and is intended as a guideline.
There is an application fee of £140.00
More details can be found on our website at: at http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/gender-recognition-panel
Kind regards ......
Admin Team
Gender Recognition Panel
Here is my response to this bullshit:
I'm sorry ........ I don't understand your answers.
I asked if Transsexual marriages are occurring and you have answered by saying same-sex marriages are occurring. I already knew this and said that we would be prepared to go down the same-sex marriage route if need be but felt it was inappropriate as neither of us is gay.
I also said that my girlfriend would bring male gendered documents from the Philippines because her real gender isn't recognised there and you answered by saying she would need to provide documentary evidence of having lived in her acquired gender for two years (?). You mention P45 and P60 as evidence, these are BRITISH documents.
I'll give you a single anecdote from my girlfriend about what it is like being transsexual in the Philippines:
She has applied for a job and is sitting, waiting with a group of other people. The receptionist calls out her name, her MALE name, the one on the document she holds that she can't change, she stands up and moves towards the receptionist all the while trying to make eye contact and motion to the receptionist to keep her voice down.
The receptionist shouts out a male name and is surprised to see a woman stand up and approach looking nervous, she impatiently calls out the male name again imagining that the woman has misheard, no-one else stands up. Then suddenly she realises and glances at her colleagues, some of whom are already stifling smirks. The other candidates are already whispering and pointing. My girlfriend quickly leaves realising that she has very little chance of a good job.
We have six months to get married here in the UK or she has to go back, I can only assume that we will have to have a same sex marriage and that her documents will remain male gendered which means I will have to take up her cause (which I will do, physically if necessary) every time some pea-brained idiot decides to question the apparent disparity between this beautiful girl and the documents she holds.
I'm not happy with the 'advice' I've received here and I think you might want to consider employing people who have some empathy with gender issues.
I won't waste any more of your time.
So the only thing I’ve established at the end of all this is that there are ‘fucking assholes’ who are on the staff of the GRP. By the way the GRP loved my email and responded with:
Dear Mr ........
I am sorry that you do not like the advice that I gave you, however there is a criteria as set out in “Gender Recognition Act 2004” (which is a British law) that the applicant has to satisfy before being granted a Gender Recognition Certificate.
We do not know what you mean by “Transsexual” marriage; there are same sex marriages and civil partnerships.
To obtain a gender recognition certificate and have your acquired gender recognised an applicant is required to meet the criteria and produce the documents that are required by law and I informed you in my email what is required.
Your girl friend will need to show that she has been living in the female gender for two years or more and to do this she would need documents with her female name on. I put P45 and P60 as I do not know what these would be called in the Philippines, and by doing so I hoped that you would be able to explain to your girlfriend the sorts of documents that would be accepted by the panel.
May we suggest that while your girlfriend is here she could start to get the documents required by the panel by changing her name by deed poll and registering with a GP? She may be able to get to see one of the doctors on our list of “specialists in the field of gender dysphoria” (which is on our website) and if you are prepared to pay their fees you may be able to get the medical reports needed by the panel.
This team has empathy with the applicants and we try to help the best we can, but we can only advise on the requirements of the Act.
Kind regards ......
Meanwhile.... I decided to look into the marriage/civil partnership thing a bit more closely.
I wrote to Bradford Registry Office:
Hello
I will be bringing my Filipina Fiancée to the UK before the end of the year. We intend to marry.
I have read the information provided by the department of the British Government that deals with immigration and they require proof that my fiancée and I intend to marry.
We decided we would like to marry in Warwickshire and I have already contacted the register office there to ask about arranging a civil ceremony in their district.
Apparently I have to let my local office know about my plans, this would be Bradford register office in my case.
There appears to be a contradiction between the requirements of the visa and the requirements of the Registry offices in the UK, In order to register an intent to marry with the local registrar my fiancée and I both need to be in the UK yet in order to bring my fiancée to the UK I need to prove that I have made some arrangement to marry. I am sure I must have misread the requirements as this appears to be a catch-22 situation.
I am aware that as registrars you are a classed as a government department so I'm wondering if you could let me know what I am supposed to do in these circumstances. The penalty for getting a visa application wrong is quite hefty both emotionally and financially.
We will marry as soon as we possibly can, of that there is no doubt in either of our minds we just need to tie up this loose end.
If we were to register a date with you it would probably be during the Easter break 2015. We are as sure as we can be that she will be in the UK by then and we will make all necessary preparations in Warwickshire to fulfill our nuptial ambitions.
Thanks in anticipation of a swift response.
The response was... and with no acknowledgement of any discrepancy:
Hi
Thank you for your recent email regarding your forthcoming marriage. Unfortunately, you have not misunderstood the requirements as your partner will have to be present in this country in order for you to register your intention to marry. Also, as your partner is neither British or a European national then you will have to enter your notices of marriage at a designated register office and the nearest to this district is Leeds. Their telephone number is 01132 224408. The guidance given to register offices has been that we should not provide written confirmation of a notice booking for anyone subject to entry clearance but you will need to talk to Leeds about that. You could also approach Warwickshire if you have made a provisional booking with them. If I can be of any further assistance please don't hesitate to contact me.
Best Wishes
Registration Services Manager/ Superintendent Registrar
Legal & Democratic Services
lBusiness Transformation lRevenues & Benefits lFinance lHuman Resources lLegal & Democratic
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council - The Register Office, 22 Manor Row, Bradford, BD1 4QU
I don’t even know where to begin to understand the reasoning of the half-humans that we have to answer to.
My partner by now had got an all clear on her TB and a band 6 on her IELTS (just marginally above the 1.5 that they DON’T tell you about and also well above the literacy levels of hordes of shell suited individuals in the UK.
I needed to send documents to the Philippines for her application. I had 250 pages of Skype conversations and about 500 pages of facebook transcripts. (we are in daily contact of between 1.5 and 6 hours per day). We had to reduce some documents and we ended up with a folder of about 700 pages. I sent this with Courierpoint, they charged me £79.95 to deliver the documents (I’m not joking). When they got to the Philippines my partner sent me an urgent message, they told her they wouldn’t deliver the documents unless she paid another £29. So... nearly £110 lighter the documents were with my girl.
We decided to apply for the CFO sticker.
The requirements state that you need:
Passport (Don’t forget to photocopy it twice)
Two other valid govt. Ids (Don’t forget to photocopy them twice)
Registration form
Bearing in mind that this pile of crap was set up to help Pinays who were being abused, it is now being used by little hitlers to abuse the very people it was set up to protect.
There are other documents they didn’t mention that they might ask you for.
Fiance’s birth certificate
Divorce papers (originals)
Photos of you and your Fiance together (up to six photos)
Fiance’s mother’s maiden name.
A landline for your fiancé, if not then a landline of a relative, if not then a landline of a neighbour (I’m not fucking joking!)
We found out all of this hidden shite and when she got there they asked her for the majority of this crap. When she provided it all they asked her for a scanned copy of my degree certificate, a scanned copy of my PGCE (teaching certificate) and a scanned copy of my passport. Nowhere in the requirements did it say they would ask for this. She was texting me all night while I slept saying they would not give her the certificate if she didn’t provide the information, fortunately I wake at five every morning so we had one hour left to provide the info. She provided it and the spineless cowards made her sit there from about nine (bearing in mind she’d queued from about half past seven) until about three.
We finally made the application online using the new beta form. I looked carefully to see if it would mention appendix 2 (which I knew about). It wasn’t mentioned anywhere. It said that this new form was designed to make it easier, as it turned out we found out it was designed to make even more money off poor people trying to get a visa legitimately. When my girlfriend went to Makati she was turned away because she hadn’t got appendix 2. As I already stated they don’t appear to ask for it. They just say how this new version will make it easier. She asked them to phone me to discuss the problem... ‘Oh No!’ they said, ‘It’s not allowed’. I’ll fucking bet! I’d have given them a right verbal bashing. They did say though that for the princely some of an extra thirty five quid we could have V.I.P. treatment and she wouldn’t have to queue when she came back again. We’ll how could we refuse desperate though we were by now.
We paid them their thirty pieces of silver and they took the documents. Problem is I don’t think that this is over. I get the distinct feeling that if (from what I’ve read) this is put before an entry clearance officer with all the morality of a chimp and the empathy of a gnat we are likely to be appealing in the near future...I would like to say I’ll update you but...
I never get any feedback from this community. Within a very short time of my beginning my posts everybody went silent. I won’t be posting again, I’m not sure why I never get feedback but I’ve also got to the point where I don’t give a ...
After much thought I decided I'd attach a pic of my beautiful asawa as I wanted folks to know what attracted me in the first place. m.jpg 78.93KB 0 downloads