Gender Recognition in the UK: a Great Leap Forward

Date01 June 2009
Published date01 June 2009
DOI10.1177/0964663909103626
Subject MatterArticles
DIALOGUE AND DEBATE
GENDER RECOGNITION IN THE
UK: A GREAT LEAP FORWARD
ANDREW N. SHARPE
University of Keele, UK
ON1 July 2004 the Gender Recognition Act (GRA)1was enacted in
the UK. While this legislation is certainly not beyond criticism, as
each of the three comments to this Debate will, in different ways,
highlight, it is nevertheless a remarkable piece of legislation. By virtue of the
Act, and as the result of decades of struggle by the transsexual community,
transsexuals who have attained the age of 18 (s. 1(1)), and who have been
diagnosed as suffering from, or as having suffered from, gender dysphoria
(s. 2(1)(a)),2are able to apply for and obtain a full Gender Recognition Certif‌i-
cate (GRC) entitling them to be treated on the basis of their reassigned gender
for all practical legal purposes. Thus, and by way of example, a male-to-female
transsexual woman who possesses a full GRC is to be considered a woman
under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. She is also to be considered female
for the purposes of section 11(c) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and
therefore able to enter into a valid marriage with a man.
The Act is especially remarkable in the UK context. Prior to the GRA, the
single event that most captured legal and political attitudes towards the plight
of transsexual people in the UK was the now infamous decision of Corbett
vCorbett [1970]. In this case, Ormrod J decided that ‘sex is determined at
birth’ and by reference to the congruence of three biological factors: chromo-
somes, gonads, and genitalia. Moreover, prior to the enactment of the GRA,
the UK had the dubious distinction of being one of only two EU nations
(with Ireland) refusing to grant transsexuals full legal status as men or women
consequent upon gender reassignment surgery. Despite a series of appeals to
the European Court of Human Rights through the 1980s and 1990s, claiming
breaches of Articles 8 (the right to privacy) and 12 (the right to marry and
found a family) of the European Convention on Human Rights (most notably,
Rees vUK [1986]; Cossey vUK [1991]; X,Y and Z vUK [1997]; Sheff‌ield
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES © The Author(s), 2009
Reprints and Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
0964 6639, Vol. 18(2), 241–245
DOI: 10.1177/0964663909103626

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