Gender Recognition Act FAQs

You should also download the explanatory guidance.

Standard-track applications are those which are not made under the fast-track or overseas application routes.

Standard-track applications require reports from two medical professionals (at least one of whom must be a specialist), and are open to those who can show that they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years.

Do you qualify for a standard-track application? To find out, Ask GRACE!

GRACE will also tell you what evidence you will need to submit with your application.

The GRA allows for overseas applications, whereby people who have had gender recognition in an approved country or territory overseas may apply for Gender Recognition in the United Kingdom, without having to submit any medical evidence.

If you believe that this applies to you, we recommend that you Ask GRACE whether you are eligible to make an overseas application.

Applicants must supply the following supporting evidence:

• Evidence that your acquired gender has been recognised under the law of an ’approved country or territory’
• Evidence relating to payment qualifications of exemptions (where applicable, i.e. if you are claiming the right to pay a reduced application fee or no fee at all)
• If you are married or in a civil partnership, evidence of the date and place that it was entered into List documents
• Birth registration information

The GRA allows for overseas applications, whereby people who have had gender recognition in an approved country or territory overseas may apply for Gender Recognition in the UK, without having to submit medical evidence.

The statutory instrument called the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (Approved Countries and Territories) Order 2004 defines the list of approved countries or states as follows:

If a country or territory is not on the draft approved list, this is probably because either it has no procedure for gender recognition, or its gender recognition process does not have criteria at least as rigorous as those in the GRA.

Section 2(4) of the Gender Recognition Act states that

In this Act “approved country or territory” means a country or territory prescribed by order made by the Secretary of State after consulting the Scottish Ministers and the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland.

Section 24(3) of the GRA states that:

No order may be made under section 2 or paragraph 11 of Schedule 3 unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.

The “Explanatory Notes” to the GRA state that:

This power will be used to prescribe those countries that have recognition criteria which are at least as rigorous as those in the Act.

If you live in the UK or plan to visit, it may be to your advantage to apply.

If you have received gender recognition from an approved country or territory, there is a simplified application process.

If you are applying on the basis that your gender has already been recognised in another country or territory (an ’overseas application’) then you may apply at any time.

If you are applying under the ’standard-track’ then you can apply when you have been transitioned for 2 years.

You can apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate as soon as you can prove that you have been living permanently in your new gender for a period of at least two years.

The only compulsory medical requirement is that you have evidence of being diagnosed as having, or having had, gender dysphoria.

There are no medical requirements such as hormone therapy or surgery, though these may help the Gender Recognition Panel be sure of your intention to live for the remainder of your life in your new gender. If there are good reasons, such as medical reasons, why you cannot undergo hormone therapy or surgery, those will be considered in evidence by the Gender Recognition Panel.

It doesn’t matter how long you have been on treatment. What is relevant is the period of time in which you can prove you have been living permanently in your new gender role. The minimum period of time is 2 years.

You can apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate as soon as you can prove that you have been living permanently in your new gender for a period of at least 2 years.

If ALL of your application form and the associated paperwork is correct when you submit it, you will be informed by the Gender Recognition Panels service what the estimated period of time for processing your application is.

If any paperwork is incorrect Gender Recognition Panel will contact you (using whatever method you have indicated as your choice of contact) and give you guidance on how to rectify the situation. They will then tell you of the impact of any delay.

In the UK, you do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate to change your passport or driving licence.

You can apply for a new driving license and passport in your new gender immediately after changing your name, so long as you have a doctor’s letter saying the change is intended to be permanent. At the same point, you can also changes your tax and National Insurance records, and the name on your medical records.

It a good idea to change these documents as soon as possible. Not only will they make life easier, but the changed documents will be useful evidence when you come to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate. However, you cannot change your birth certificate until you have obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate. You cannot apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate until you can prove that you have been living permanently in your new gender role for at least 2 years.

A Birth Certificate is a copy or extract from the entry in a birth register made when a person’s birth is registered. It contains the facts of a person’s birth, as recorded at the time, including that person’s gender.

If your birth was registered in the UK, you will not have to apply for a new birth certificate.

Once a full Gender Recognition Certificate (FGRC) has been issued, the Gender Recognition Panel will make arrangements for the General Register Office to contact you and they will issue a new birth certificate.

(Note: If your birth was registered outside the UK, the UK authorities cannot issue you a new birth certificate.)

If your birth was registered in Scotland, the Registrar General for Scotland has produced a web page giving details of the process.

The cost of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate will depend on your personal relevant income:

Note that all figures refer to income before tax and National Insurance contributions are deducted – in other words, your ’gross income’.

Your ’relevant income’ includes your employment income, profit from a trade, profession or vocation, and any chargeable gains for the tax year immediately preceding the year in which the application is made. The tax year ends on 5th April, and the date of your application will be the date that you sign and date section 10 of the application form.

However, no fee is payable —

1. in relation to an application for a FGRC from an applicant who had received an IGRC;
2. in relation to an application for a correction to a GRC;
3. by an applicant whose relevant income is less than £16,017; or
4. by an applicant who, at the time when a fee would otherwise become payable, is in receipt of any qualifying benefit.

For more information, see the GRP’s full guidance on fees.

To qualify for a free application, you must be receiving one of the qualifying benefits listed below.

Note that to claim a free application, your application must be accompanied by an “award notice” which is not more than six months old. This is to prove that you receive the benefit.

If you don’t have an award notice to hand, we have details of how to get an award notice.

Qualifying Benefits

The following are qualifying benefits for free applications —

1. income support;
2. working tax credit, provided that—
   1. child tax credit is being paid to the party, or otherwise following a claim for child tax credit made jointly by the members of a married couple or an unmarried couple (as defined respectively in section 3(5) and (6) of the Tax Credits Act 2002 (c.21)) which includes the party; or
   2. there is a disability element or severe disability element (or both) to the tax credit received by the party;
   and that the gross annual income taken into account for the calculation of the working tax credit is £16,017 or less;
3. income-based jobseeker’s allowance under—
   1. the Jobseekers Act 1995 (c.18); or
   2. the Jobseekers (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (S.I. 1995/2705 (N.I. 15)); and
4. guarantee credit under—
   1. the State Pension Credit Act 2002 (c. 16.); or
   2. the State Pension Credit Act (Northern Ireland) 2002 (c. 14.).

For more information, see the GRP’s full guidance on fees.

If you are in receipt of benefits you will have been sent an award notice by the relevant government agency.

This is the document which you must send to prove that your are receiving a qualifying benefit, and are therefore eligible for a reduced application fee.

The award notice which you send must be not more than six months old.

How to get an award notice

If you do not have your award notice, or if it is over 6 months old, you will have to obtain a new award notice.

The DWP has supplied contact details for the agencies who issue award notices for each type of qualifying benefit. These are listed below. (Note that Northern Ireland has separate agencies for benefits and credits, which are set out separately at the end of the list.)

You should telephone or write to the relevant organisation in order to have a new award notice sent to you.

Your call will be treated confidentially, but you do not need to explain that you need the award notice as part of your application for gender recognition. You only need to explain that it is required by another government agency as proof that you are receiving benefits.

Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support

Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support are both handled by Jobcentre Plus, which is part of the DWP:

If you are in a Jobcentre Plus area:

• To get information about benefits, customers should contact Jobcentre Plus by phone.
  Calls are charged at local rates.
  Lines are open 8.30am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday.

If you are not in a Jobcentre Plus area:

• If you have a query about Jobseekers Allowance contact your local Jobcentre.
• If you have a query about other benefits contact your local Social Security office.

Website: www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk

Pension Credit (Guarantee)

Pension Credit is handled by the Pension Service, which is also part of the DWP.

Contact your Pension Centre:

• Telephone: 0845 606 0265
• Textphone: 0845 606 0285

Opening Hours are 8.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday

Website: www.thepensionservice.gov.uk

Working Families Tax Credit

Working Families Tax Credit is handled by the Inland Revenue

If a tax credit recipient required a duplicate award notice, they would just ring the normal tax credit helpline number to request one i.e. 0845 300 3900 for callers in GB and 0845 603 2000 for callers in NI.

All Northern Ireland Customers

All relevant benefits in Northern Ireland are handled by the Northern Ireland Social Security Agency

Northern Ireland customers can obtain further information from their local Jobs and Benefits /Social Security Office, the Pension Service Windsor House Belfast (details in your phone book), Pension Credit Enquiry Line on 0808 100 2658 or from the Benefit Shop, Royal Avenue Belfast on 0800 22 0674.

You can also obtain further information on the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland website at www.dsdni.gov.uk

You will not pay for a new birth certificate as such. Provided your birth was registered in the United Kingdom, a new short form birth certificate will be provided free once you have been awarded a Gender Recognition Certificate

If you want a new long form birth certificate, you will pay the standard fee which is currently (December 2004):-

• Full certificate of birth or adoption: £11.50
• Full certificate of birth or adoption (with GRO reference supplied) by post, phone or fax: £8.50
• Full certificate of birth or adoption (with GRO reference supplied) ordered online via the internet: £7.00

A ’GRO reference’ is the index number to a particular entry to the births, marriage and death registers.

While the registers themselves are not open to public scrutiny, the indexes are. Most large public libraries have sets of microfiche containing the indexes.

An application for a Gender Recognition Certificate must include evidence.

In the case of applications under the standard-track ’two-year rule’, this will include medical evidence and evidence of transition date, as well as a statutory declaration.

Overseas applications do not require either medical evidence or evidence of the date of transition, but do require a statutory declaration.

Proof of transition date may take many forms.

When you apply for your Gender Recognition Certificate you should provide more than one form of proof, but you do not need to go overboard. For example it may be a passport that was issued in your new gender, a driving licence, a P60 from your employer, a benefits agency payment book, your telephone bills, an examination certificate, or a letter from the inland revenue that states when you started paying your tax and national insurance payments in your new identity.

If you have nothing at hand (because you have been a very tidy person) then write to Inland Revenue (Special Section D), National Insurance Contributions Office, NI Services to Contributor, Benton Park View, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE98 1ZZ. They will be able to write you a letter which states the date from which you started to pay national insurance benefits in your new name.

Be sensible: the Gender Recognition Panel will not try to “catch you out”, but will want to be confident that you are telling the truth.

So it would not be a good idea to send every gas bill you have had for the last two years, but you might include a couple of gas bills — an old one and a new one, along with your change of name declaration and your passport.

You have to demonstrate to the Gender Recognition Panel that you were living permanently and for all purposes in your acquired gender role for the last two years.

However, if for any period and for any purposes you were still using your old name and gender then the two years would start again from the date when you started living completely in your new gender and continued to do so for all purposes until the date of your application.

Proof can take many forms. A deed poll or statutory declaration is likely to carry more weight than other documents, but it should not be essential.

When you apply for your Gender Recognition Certificate you should provide more than one form of proof, but you do not need to go overboard. For example it may be a passport that was issued in your new gender, a driving licence, a P60 from your employer, a benefits agency payment book, your telephone bills, an examination certificate, or a letter from the inland revenue that states when you started paying your tax and national insurance payments in your new identity.

A passport issued after you transitioned will certainly be one of the things you should keep to use as proof of when you began to live full-time in your acquired gender. (We have used the term transition date to describe this date).

If a passport is the only thing you have (and not your original doctor’s letter or statutory declaration of name change) you might wish to hunt out something else - such as an old tax return, or P60.

Your driving licence will be a valuable contribution to the evidence you send to prove your transition date. However, it is unlikely that a driving licence on its own will be enough to satisfy the GRP. It is likely that you would be asked to supply other evidence.

We would suggest you also send in other documentation such as your change of name declaration, and some other items — such as a rent book, mortgage agreement or a payslip or P60.

A letter from your university would certainly be acceptable as a one form of proof of your transition date.

When you apply for your Gender Recognition Certificate, you should provide more than one form of proof, but you do not need to go overboard.

Proof can take many forms; for example it may be a passport that was issued in your new gender, a driving licence, a P60 from your employer, a benefits agency payment book, your telephone bills, an examination certificate, or a letter from the inland revenue that states when you started paying your tax and national insurance payments in your new identity.

The requirement for medical evidence (if any) depends on the type of application being made. Applications may be made on one of two tracks: an overseas application or the standard-track.

Overseas applications

Applicants making an ’overseas application’ (i.e. those who apply on the basis of having received gender recognition in an approved country or territory overseas) do not have to produce any medical evidence.

Standard track applications

Those applying under the ’standard-track’ ’two-year’ rule must supply two medical reports:

• One from a doctor or psychologist who is a specialist in the field of gender dysphoria, including “details of the diagnosis of the applicant’s gender dysphoria”; and
• One from a another doctor, who need not be a specialist

If the applicant has undergone or is undergoing treatment for the purpose of modifying sexual characteristics, or treatment for that purpose has been prescribed or planned for the applicant, at least one of the reports required must include details of the treatment.

Note that you do not have to have had surgery to apply under the standard track.

That depends on what type of application you are making. A specialist diagnosis is always required for standard-track applications.

Overseas applications

Applicants making an ’overseas application’ (i.e. those who apply on the basis of having received gender recognition in an approved country or territory overseas) do *not* have to produce any medical evidence.

Standard track applications

Those applying under the ’standard-track’ ’two-year’ rule must supply two medical reports. At least one of those reports must be from a doctor or psychologist who is a specialist in the field of gender dysphoria, including “details of the diagnosis of the applicant’s gender dysphoria”.

The Gender Recognition Act includes a section on interpretation which says that:

’”gender dysphoria” means the disorder variously referred to as gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder and transsexualism’

The report confirming diagnosis must be from a specialist doctor or psychologist who is on the list of recognised specialist “experts”. If so, it is acceptable as evidence of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as long as it includes details of a diagnosis of:

• gender dysphoria, or
• gender identity disorder, or
• transsexualism

Note that no medical evidence is required for overseas applications.

Standard-track applications

Those who are applying under the standard-track will be required to provide two completed forms (which are included in the application pack for gender recognition). The first must be from a registered specialist doctor or psychologist who is an ’expert’ in the field of gender dysphoria. They are required to state that you have been diagnosed as having, or having had, gender dysphoria. A letter rather than the completed form will be acceptable.

This doctor or psychologist must have been registered to practice in the UK at the time of the diagnosis or confirmation of the diagnosis.

There will be a published list of recognised specialist “experts”. If you do not have a letter from one of the listed experts, unless you can show that your doctor or psychologist has been left off the list by mistake and is truly an expert in the field, you will be obliged to obtain a completed form confirming diagnosis from one of the listed experts. The list has been made as comprehensive as possible to include all those doctors and psychologists who have worked in the public or private sector with transsexual people during the last 4 years.

You will also need to provide a letter or completed form from your GP (family doctor) in which s/he confirms what treatment and surgery you have undergone or are undergoing.

There is a published list of recognised ‘experts’ who are doctors or psychologists (in most cases, the doctors will be psychiatrists). These are the people whose diagnosis of gender dysphoria may be accepted by the Gender Recognition Panels.

If you do not have a letter from one of the listed experts, unless you can show that your doctor or psychologist has been left off the list by mistake and is truly an expert in the field, you will be obligated to obtain a completed form confirming diagnosis from one of the listed experts. The list has been made as comprehensive as possible to include all those doctors and psychologists who have worked in the public or private sector with transsexual people during the last 4 years.

The fact that you have not had gender reassignment surgery does not prevent you from applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate.

The Gender Recognition Act does not require surgery (or hormone therapy for that matter) as a pre-condition for obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). However, it does require that you submit details of any surgery you have had.

As your heart problem clearly makes it inappropriate to have full gender reassignment surgery that will be a relevant matter and will ensure that your application will not be rejected on these grounds (you should ask your doctor to provide confirmation of why you cannot have surgery).

Once you have been awarded a Gender Recognition Certificate, then a new birth certificate will be issued automatically if your birth was registered in the UK.

You will be required to send some documents as evidence to accompany your application for a GRC.

If you send original documents, the GRP will make copies for their own use and return the original documents to you.

Photocopies of documents will be acceptable as evidence to accompany a Gender Recognition Certificate application, but they must be confirmed as ’true copies’. This would require asking a practicing solicitor to sign each of the documents as true copies.

You will be allowed to apply to get married as soon as you get a Gender Recognition Certificate.

It is a legal requirement to give notice of marriage. After giving notice you must then wait a further sixteen days before the marriage can take place - for example, if notice is given on 1st July, the ceremony can take place on or after 17th July. Once given, your notice is valid for 12 months (or 3 months if in Scotland).

Further details on the rules surrounding marriage can be obtained from your local Registrar’s Office (see your local telephone directory for contact details).

You will be recognised for all legal purposes as a woman, including marriage, only when you have applied for and been awarded a gender recognition certificate. Until then, you may not legally marry.

To find out when and how you can apply for a GRC, Ask GRACE.

Being married does cause a problem. The Gender Recognition Act does not allow those in a pre-existing marriage to have full legal recognition. This is because same-sex marriages are not legal in the UK.

However, if you are married, you can apply for a GRC, but you will only be issued with an Interim Gender Recognition Certificate.

In Scotland, possession of an IGRC is a ground for divorce.

In the other UK countries (i.e. England, Wales and Northern Ireland), an IGRC will give you and your partner a period of 6 months within which you may apply to the courts for an annulment of your marriage. This is an easier and cheaper process than divorce.

As the court issues you with a notice of annulment or divorce with one hand, at the same time it will convert your interim GRC to a full GRC. A new birth certificate will be issued by the General Registry Office a few days later.

The Civil Partnership Act came into force in October 2005. This enables same-sex couples (as you and your partner will have become) to contract a partnership which will have almost equivalent rights and benefits of marriage.

As such, you will be able to end your marriage using the process of annulment (or in Scotland, divorce), obtain your full GRC and then within a very short space of time (we reckon the minimum period will be a few hours) you will be able to contract a civil partnership.

However, we will be recommending that those people in marriages who intend to use this process seek advice, in particular with regard to pension benefits on the death of either spouse.

1. There is a practice direction relating to annulment where there is a gender recognition certificate — it can be found at http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/files/ gender_recognition_act2004_practice_direction.pdf

   You should ensure the court has a copy of that direction. Take it with you when you go to complete the petition forms. As you will see it tells you exactly the words you should use in your petition form:

   “I am applying to annul the marriage under Section 12(g) of, or paragraph 11(1)(e) of Schedule 1 to, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (’that an interim gender recognition certificate has, after the time of the marriage, been issued to either party to the marriage’).”

2. You should not need a solicitor to help you complete the petition. Firstly — the forms are difficult but they can be done by yourself if you read them carefully — but I must admit they are not easy. Any court office who advises you to get a solicitor just to complete theforms on this, the easiest of petitions to deal with, should be shot at dawn for failing to do their job. After all the respondent is not going to contest the application for annulment. It is usual that the court’s administrative officers help complete the forms. They are normally very helpful if you make an appointment to have help completing the forms (or sometimes even if you just turn up). They will then guide you bit by bit through the forms. If you get anything wrong on the petition at that time, they normally get back to you with guidance, as they really do get a bollocking if they present forms to the judge which are not correct. They will not charge you another £300 if you do it this way, as long as you take their advice.

   BUT — and this is the crux — You must start your petition in a DIVORCE COUNTY COURT

   go to http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/HMCSCourtFinder/CourtList.do

   go down the page to where it says “Court Work Type Search” and put in ’DIVORCE’ — a long list of courts comes up (10 to the page). Be careful, though the first page looks like it might be in alphabetical order, it isn’t. On searching through this list I can’t find Huddersfield … which may explain why the know nothing. It probably is not a Divorce County Court. So, first, you should ask Huddersfield if they are a Divorce County Court, and if they are not, then ask them for the nearest one. You should then find a court where the Divorce clerk and administrative office should know what they are doing, and will be able to help you complete the petition correctly.

3. Do make sure you that when you go to complete the forms, you both go so that they can advise you on which one of you should petition and which one of you should respond.

   You need to take with you:

   • Your own full name and address.

   • Your husband’s or wife’s full name and address.

   • A copy of your marriage certificate which is not a photocopy i.e. the original.

   • The names and dates of birth of any living children you have, no matter how old they are.

4. You will have to pay a court fee unless:

   • you or your partner receive Income Support;

   • you or your partner receive Pension Credit guarantee credit;

   • you receive Income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance;

   • your gross annual income is £15,460 or less, and you receive Working Tax Credit with a ’disability element’ or ’severe disability element’;

   • your gross annual income is £15,460 or less and you and your partner receive Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit between you;

   If you show that the payment of a court fee would involve undue hardship to you, the Court Manager may reduce the fee or “remit” (say you do not have to pay) the fee.

   Form EX160 “Application for a fee exemption or remission” can be used to apply for an exemption, remission or refund of fees you have paid if you fall below a certain income bracket — all of your actual income expenses are taken into account. It is properly means tested, i.e. your savings are taken into account. However, before thinking you don’t qualify, take some advice from Age Concern, the CABx or a welfare rights officer (normally found at your town hall). — the form can be found at http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/HMCSCourtFinder/GetForm.do?court_forms_id=168

It doesn’t matter whether you married in a church or in a registry office. Under English law any marriage to a member of the same birth sex, before you have obtained a GRC, is a void marriage.

You can safely state on your application form that you are unmarried — because in law your marriage had no legal status. (In fact you must say that you are unmarried: it would not be legally true to say that you are married).

As such, you do not have to get divorced to end your marriage. Legally, it never existed.

So go ahead and apply for your GRC (so long as you meet the other criteria). Then after you have obtained your legal recognition, go and get remarried, so that you can safeguard those benefits that come with marriage.

There is no mechanism whereby marriages are cross checked against previous marriages, so you will not find that you suddenly have unwanted publicity. However, it would be advisable that if you want to avoid any possible publicity that you opt for a quiet second marriage ceremony at your local registrars office rather than a full church wedding again.

Your marriage is a legal marriage, and you will be able to be legally married after you have both obtained gender recognition certificates. However, in order to qualify for a gender recognition certificate you must be unmarried.

On your gender recognition application forms, you should both state you are married. You may find it most convenient for your applications to be processed together: the GRP’s guidelines explain how to do this.

If you meet the relevant criteria, you will then both be issued with an interim gender recognition certificate.

In Scotland, an IGRC will be a ground for divorce.

In other UK countries, an IGRC will give you 6 months in which to apply to the High Court for an annulment of your marriage. This is a much cheaper and quicker way of ending a marriage than divorce.

Whilst you are waiting for the court hearing, go back to a registry office and put in a fresh application to be married. When you go to the registry office you will need to arrange a private meeting with the registrar to explain the situation to them, in order to get their maximum cooperation (they will have had relevant training). So in effect, you will end your marriage and then remarry as soon as possible.

When you have your court hearing for the annulment or divorce as you are given the notice of annulment or divorce, the court will simultaneously translate your interim gender recognition certificates into full gender recognition certificates. You should try and arrange for your new marriage to be on the same day in order to maximise your financial protection (to try and avoid a situation where one of you dies in the gap).

Because there will be a period after the annulment (or divorce in Scotland) when where you are not married, it would be a very good idea for you both to write wills to ensure that if any disaster happens your relationship has maximum protection.

An Interim Gender Recognition Certificate is a document issued to a person who successfully applies for legal recognition of their new gender when the applicant is in a pre-existing marriage or civil partnership.

An Interim Gender Recognition Certificate does not bestow any new legal right or responsibilities. It may be used as a ground for the ending of a marriage or civil partnership.

You say that you are a Dutch (male to female) trans woman, and who obtained a Dutch certificate of recognition of gender change many years ago. You married your husband in an Irish country town using your Dutch passport, which clearly states that you am female. You now live in England, and want to know whether you need to get a UK GRC, and whether you need to remarry your husband.

This is a very grey area of law, and currently your legal rights in the UK are subject to question. You might argue that your status under European Union law is clearly that of a woman. However, The Irish government would argue that it was not because they do not recognise legal changes of gender, nor do they recognise what they see as ’same-sex’ marriages.

It would be advisable, just to be certain, that you apply for a GRC stating that you are unmarried (which it would be argued you currently are in the UK) and then remarry again. Fortunately there are no rules saying that you can’t marry the same person over and over again, so long as you are not married to any other person at the same time.

Yes you can apply even if your birth was not registered in the UK.

If you meet the criteria and provide the appropriate proof and supporting documents you can be awarded a Gender Recognition Certificate. This will give you legal recognition for all purposes in the UK.

No. The United Kingdom government cannot re-issue birth certificates unless the birth was registered in the UK.

In these circumstances you would still get a gender recognition certificate, but it would not look like a birth certificate.

If you are living in Ireland there is no guarantee that the Irish Government would recognise your change of gender. Ireland currently does not allow gender to be changed on birth certificates.

The UK Government cannot replace a birth certificate from any other country. It can only replace UK birth certificates.

You may be able to use your gender recognition certificate to get a new birth certificate from the state which registered your birth. However, this will depend on the rules of that state.

It would be advisable to contact the Birth registration authorities of your birth state to find out what mechanism they use to alter or reissue birth certificates. You might need to go through a new process there, and it may be that they will not accept the Gender Recognition Certificate as proof of your change of legal identity.

Your Gender Recognition Certificate provides for legal recognition of your acquired gender in the UK. However, UK law does not apply outside the UK: it is for other states to decide whether they will recognise a GRC issued in the UK.

It may well be that many European states will recognise the GRC as proof of legal change of gender, but many may not and may insist that you also use local mechanisms to obtain legal recognition there.

A few European states (such as Ireland and Albania) have no legal mechanism for recognising change of gender. If the state where you were born does not recognise your GRC, and provides no mechanism for changing gender, then you will end up with two different legal genders: your acquired gender in the UK, and your birth gender in the country where your birth is registered.

For all sorts of reasons, you may not wish your gender history to be common knowledge.

The Gender Recognition Act safeguards the privacy of trans people by defining much information relating to the Gender Recognition process as ’protected information’.

The Act makes it a criminal offence to disclose that protected information if it has been acquired in an official capacity. There are some exceptions, set out below.

Section 22 of the GRA defines protected information as:

• information about a person’s application for a gender recognition certificate, or
• information about the gender history of a successful applicant.

Note that the GRA does not protect any information relating to a person who has not applied for gender recognition.

In most cases, anyone who acquires the protected information in an ’official capacity’ would be breaking the law if they disclosed it without your consent. However, the Act contains a series of exemptions which allow information to be disclosed for valid public policy reasons without your consent. One example is for preventing or investigating crime.

People who might gain protected information ’in an official capacity’ include anyone to whom you show your Gender Recognition Certificate to obtain the rights that are associated with it. This is likely to be very rare, but might involve someone at a building society or Jobcentre, or a potential employer.

In addition, all the people who handle your application for gender recognition are bound by law to respect your privacy. They must not disclose any information about your application to anyone else unless it is permitted under the Act, or you have consented to the information being disclosed. This includes, for example:

• the Gender Recognition Panel and its staff
• the doctors who you ask to provide medical evidence for your application
• the solicitors or notaries who witness your statutory declaration
• A trans organisation which you ask to help you in your application, such as Press For Change or The Gender Trust

The GRA gives you a right to privacy, but you should bear in mind that privacy does not mean absolute secrecy.

There may be some situations in which you will be required by law or necessity to prove a link between your current legal gender and your former one. Although the process seeks to safeguard your privacy, you do not have a right never to disclose the fact that you have applied for obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate.

What you do have is a right to have any ’protected information’ treated as private and confidential. This means that it may not be passed on to any other person without your consent, other than in the exceptional cases set out below.

When you receive a full Gender Recognition Certificate, it will include a covering letter which will help you to explain your rights whenever you show anyone your Gender Recognition Certificate.

The GRA does not stop people gossiping.

For example, if you tell a friend or neighbour about your gender recognition certificate, that is not ’protected information’ — because the information was not acquired in an ’official capacity’.

That sort of gossip may be bad manners, but because the information is not ’protected information’, it is not forbidden by the GRA.

Information is ’protected information’ if the person gains it:

• in connection with the person’s functions as a member of the civil service, a police constable or the holder of any other public office or in connection with the functions of a local or public authority or of a voluntary organisation, or
• as an employer, or prospective employer, of the person to whom the information relates or as a person employed by such an employer or prospective employer, or
• in the course of, or otherwise in connection with, the conduct of business or the supply of professional services.

The Act provides some exceptions, when protected information may be disclosed, even if you have not given your consent.

The exceptions apply when:

• the information does not enable that person to be identified, or
• that person has agreed to the disclosure of the information, or
• the information is protected information by virtue of subsection (2)(b) and the person by whom the disclosure is made does not know or believe that a full gender recognition certificate has been issued, or
• the disclosure is in accordance with an order of a court or tribunal, or
• the disclosure is for the purpose of instituting, or otherwise for the purposes of, proceedings before a court or tribunal, or
• the disclosure is for the purpose of preventing or investigating crime, or
• the disclosure is made to the Registrar General for England and Wales, the Registrar General for Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland, or
• the disclosure is made for the purposes of the social security system or a pension scheme, or
• the disclosure is in accordance with an order made under section 22(5) of the GRA, or
• the disclosure is in accordance with any provision of any other law.

As of January 2005, no order has been made under section 22(5). However, we expect that before the first Gender Recognition Certificates are issued, an order will be made which permits disclosure in some limited cases relating to:

• people who ask to be married in a church, or
• people who apply to be a minister in a church, or
• disclosures by a registered Credit Reference Agency of information contained in a court order, or
• in certain circumstances relating to medical treatment

A criminal offence has been committed if someone discloses protected information without your consent, and they have acquired that information in an ’official capacity’, and the disclosure is not permitted by any of the exceptions listed above.

If you reasonably believe that protected information has been disclosed in this away, you may report the matter to the police.

Your Gender Recognition Certificate provides for legal recognition of your change of gender in the United Kingdom, for all purposes.

UK law does not apply outside the UK, and other countries may choose to recognise your GRC, or not to recognise it. We hope that in future we can provide more guidance on the approaches taken in other states, but cannot give any definitive answers until the GRA has been in effect for a while.

International law in this area is unclear, and different countries take very different views of overseas change of gender. However, we believe that under the law of the European Union, the 25 EU member states would be required to accept the validity of each other’s mechanisms for gender recognition. Unfortunately, this may depend on individuals taking test cases to test the law.

The Gender Recognition Act has effect throughout the United Kingdom: i.e.England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Note that The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom: they are Crown Dependencies, with their own legal systems. Therefore the GRA does not apply in the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, or Sark.

Citizens of the Crown Dependencies are entitled to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate, as is anyone from anywhere in the world. However, they cannot be issued with new birth certificates unless their birth was registered in the UK.

Trans people in the Crown Dependencies are likely to have had their medical treatment in the UK, so they will probably have the appropriate medical evidence from doctors registered in the UK, as required by the GRP.

Although the GRA does not apply in the Isle of Man, we believe that in early 2005 the Manx government is likely to bring orders to the Tynwald (the Manx parliament) to adopt the aspects of the Gender Recognition Act which apply to social security. This will mean that a Manx person who gets a Gender Recognition Certificate will be able to get pensions/benefits in their acquired gender.

In Guernsey, a trans woman has succeeded in petitioning the Royal Court of Guernsey for the issue of a new birth certificate on the basis of having obtained a GRC in the UK.