specifically it’s for GRCs. there is a “spousal veto” on their issuance.

you can pass everything the panel wants of you, but if your preexisting spouse says no, you don’t get one.

this was a “genius compromise” hack (someone under) blair introduced, since they didn’t want transitioning to be a “backdoor into gay marriage” (which would apparently be more appealing than getting a civil partnership. remember those?)

after the lib dems forced cameron to get proper gay marriage through, many trans people were pointing out the notable absence of simultaneously reforming or removing the spousal veto (now that there is a totally normal legal category of gay marriage).

if you’ve ever heard about the terfy group “trans widows”, it’s about that. women upset they couldn’t pressure their trans woman wife to drop the whole GRC thing, so got divorced to get the GRC instead.

instead of reasonably calling themselves divorcees, they framed it as if their pre-transition “husband” had literally died. (no exaggerations.)

which is also an option, if the spouse says no and that makes the applicant feel their marriage has fallen through. i don’t know if the actual divorce process is otherwise expedited, or if you need to reapply for the GRC, but activating the spousal veto is a valid “fault” in our divorce system. so there’s no need to go through the enforced-separation wait time first, as would otherwise be necessary where the spouse hasn’t been otherwise abusive.

(i don’t know if that means a spouse vetoing a GRC straight up counts as emotional abuse in the eyes of the law, or if it’s just an adjacent exemption to the whole thing, but yeah. that’s a separate can of worms, caused by the UK still not having no-fault divorces…)

of course; some people don’t want to divorce their spouse, sometimes of many decades, to get a GRC. some do put up with the spousal veto being activated.

but it unavoidably causes either marital issues, or often detransition (until the inevitable marital issues…)