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Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Applications for gender recognition certificate

1. Applications
(1) A person of either gender who is aged at least 18 may make an application for a gender recognition certificate on the basis of

(a) living in the other gender, or

(b) having changed gender under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom

(2) In the Act “the acquired gender,” in relation to a person by whom an application under subsection (1) has been made, means
(a) in the case of an application under paragraph (a) of that subsection, the gender in which the person is living, or

(b) in the case of an application under paragraph (b) of that subsection, the gender to which the person has changed under the law of the country or territory concerned.

(3) An application under subsection (1) is to be determined by a Gender Recognition Panel.

(4) Schedule 1 (Gender Recognition Panels) has effect.

Source: An Act to make provision for and in connection with change of gender (July 1, 2004)

Great Events from History: GLBT Events
Britain Passes Gender Recognition Bill, Legalizing Transsexual Marriage

The United Kingdom passed legislation enabling changes to sex/gender designations on birth certificates, allowing transsexuals to legally marry in their “acquired” gender. The act has been heralded especially because it does not require that a person undergo gender reassignment surgery for the change on the birth certificate to be valid.

Date: July 1, 2004
Locale: United Kingdom
Categories: Transgender/transsexuality; civil rights; laws, acts, and legal
history; government and politics

Key Figures
April Ashley, male-to-female transsexual whose marriage to English aristocrat
        Arthur Corbett was annulled in 1970
Elizabeth Bellinger, male-to-female transsexual whose long-term marriage was
        ruled illegal in 2003
Lord Irvine, Lord Chancellor, forced by superiors to pay half of Bellinger’s legal
        costs
Michael Scott-Joynt, bishop of Winchester, who opposed the act

Summary of Event
After more than thirty years of struggle, transsexuals in the United Kingdom gained the right to marry in their “acquired” gender after the country’s Gender Recognition Act received Royal assent on July 1, 2004. The new legislation made it possible for transsexuals to change the sex/gender designation on their birth certificates, a designation that is required in order for transsexual marriages to be legally recognized as “heterosexual.”

Until the passage of the law, the United Kingdom was one of only four European countries that refused to recognize gender reassignment legally. The others are Ireland, Albania, and Andorra. Gender recognition under the new law does not require applicants to have undergone gender reassignment surgery, and it prohibits disclosure of the applicant’s change-in-gender status.

Since the High Court first annulled the marriage of April Ashley and aristocrat Arthur Corbett in 1970, the British have steadfastly refused to allow transsexual marriage. However, the European Court of Human Rights, beginning with two rulings in July, 2002, had found that U.K. law violated the human rights of transsexuals. That finding was reiterated on January 7, 2004, when the European Court of Justice ruled that U.K. law, which denied transsexuals the right to marry, was in violation of European law because it would make couples in question ineligible for a survivor’s pension.

One of the highest-profile cases was that of Elizabeth Bellinger, a male-to-female transsexual who had gender reassignment surgery in 1981. Before the surgery, Bellinger had lived as a woman for ten years. She married Michael Bellinger in 1981 in Lincolnshire, at which time she was not asked to produce legal proof of her gender. After twenty-two years of living together as husband and wife, the couple was unable to get British courts to recognize their marriage, losing appeals in the High Court, the Appeal Court, and, ultimately, in the House of Lords on April 10, 2003. Although rejecting Bellinger’s claim to a legal marriage, the law lords found that her human rights had been violated and so directed Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, to pay half the legal costs of Bellinger’s appeal.

Opposition to the gender recognition bill came from the bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, and several Tories in the House of Lords, who argued that the bill would undermine marriage and that it ran counter to logic and the beliefs of more than one religion. The Press Association News quoted Lord Filkin in rebuttal; he explained that “the law is not seeking to change the sex of an individual, it is seeking to recognize that a change has happened.” The new legislation took effect on April 4, 2005, and is administered by the Gender Recognition Panel.

Significance
The Gender Recognition Act has affected thousands of transsexuals in the United Kingdom. In addition to legalizing transsexual marriage and enabling transsexuals to claim pensions with their acquired gender, the law also ensures that male-to-female transsexuals are not sent to male prisons in the event that they are convicted of a crime by British courts. Perhaps most significantly, the passage of this law brings the United Kingdom into compliance with the human rights conventions of the European Union regarding the rights of transsexuals.

The British law has been heralded as progressive by transgender activists especially because it does not require that a person undergo gender reassignment surgery before receiving a new birth certificate. Some transsexuals are unable to have the surgery.

K. Surkan

Further Reading
“Britain’s Bar on Transsexual Marriages Contrary to EU Law.” Agence France Presse, Brussels, January 7, 2004.

Brown, Amanda, and Anthony Looch. “Bishop Condemns Transsexual Marriage Plans.” Press Association News, December 18, 2003.

Evans, Andrew. “Transsexuals Marriage Bill Clears Lords.” Press Association News, February 10, 2004.

“Gender Recognition Bill.” Gender Recognition Panel. Tribunal Services, Department for Constitutional Affairs. http://www.grp.gov.uk/. Accessed on April 4, 2006.

Goodchild, Sophie. “Ministers to Change Law on Transsexual Marriages.” The Independent, July 6, 2003.

International Commission on Civil Status. Transsexualism in Europe. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe, distributed by Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Manhattan, 2000.

Rozenberg, Joshua. “Lords Reject Appeal Over Transsexual Marriage.” The Daily Telegraph, April 11, 2003, p. 13.

Sharpe, Andrew N. Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law. London: Cavendish, 2002.

See Also
June 17, 1995: International Bill of Gender Rights; September 21, 1996: President Clinton Signs Defense of Marriage Act; December 20, 1999: Baker v. Vermont Leads to Recognition of Same-Gender Unions; April 30, 2002: Transgender Rights Added to New York City Law; February 21, 2003: Australian Court Validates Transsexual Marriage; April, 2003: Buenos Aires, Argentina, Recognizes Same-Gender Civil Unions; November 18, 2003: Massachusetts Court Rules for Same-Gender Marriage; July 5, 2003: Spain Legalizes Same-Gender Marriage; June 17, 2003: Canada Legalizes Same-Gender Marriage; December, 2005: Great Britain Legalizes Same-Gender Civil Unions.