The Gender Recognition Panel is a tribunal in the United Kingdom dealing with transsexual and transgender concerns and allowing people to change their legal gender. It was founded to satisfy the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which legislates its decision-making process.
It issues gender recognition certificates for people who "live in another gender". [1]
The members of the panel are appointed by the Lord Chancellor with the agreement of the presidents of the Courts for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Only lawyers, medical practitioners or psychologists may be appointed to the panel. [2] Its current president, Paula Gray, was appointed by Robert Buckland in 2019. [3]
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establish, a new gender status that accords with their gender identity. Transsexual is generally considered a subset of transgender, but some transsexual people reject being labelled transgender.
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alleviate gender dysphoria. The term is also sometimes used to describe surgical intervention for intersex people. It is also known as sex reassignment surgery (SRS), gender confirmation surgery (GCS), and several other names.
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a trial court and a court of appeal. Decisions of the court can be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, with the permission of either the Inner House or the Supreme Court. The Court of Session and the local sheriff courts of Scotland have concurrent jurisdiction for all cases with a monetary value in excess of £100,000; the plaintiff is given first choice of court. However, the majority of complex, important, or high value cases are brought in the Court of Session. Cases can be remitted to the Court of Session from the sheriff courts, including the Sheriff Personal Injury Court, at the request of the presiding sheriff. Legal aid, administered by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, is available to persons with little disposable income for cases in the Court of Session.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allows people who have gender dysphoria to change their legal gender. It came into effect on 4 April 2005.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to transgender topics.
The courts of Scotland are responsible for administration of justice in Scotland, under statutory, common law and equitable provisions within Scots law. The courts are presided over by the judiciary of Scotland, who are the various judicial office holders responsible for issuing judgments, ensuring fair trials, and deciding on sentencing. The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, subject to appeals to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, and the High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court, which is only subject to the authority of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on devolution issues and human rights compatibility issues.
Stephen Thomas Whittle, is a British legal scholar and activist with the transgender activist group Press for Change. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Equalities Law in the School of Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. Between 2007 and 2009, he was president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Having been assigned female at birth, he is described as "a radical lesbian before his sex change and now a leading commentator on gender issues", who after the Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into force in April 2005, achieved legal recognition as a man and so was able to marry his female partner.
Corbett v Corbett is a 1970 family law divorce case heard between November and December 1969 by the High Court of England and Wales in which Arthur Corbett sought annulment of his marriage to April Ashley. Corbett had known at the time of the wedding that Ashley had been registered male at birth and had undertaken sex-reassignment surgery. However, after the relationship had broken down Corbett sought to end the marriage, his legal ground for doing so being that the wedding had been invalid as Ashley was of the male sex.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have varied over time.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Scotland are generally in line with the rest of the United Kingdom, which have evolved extensively over time and are now regarded as some of the most progressive in Europe. In both 2015 and 2016, Scotland was recognised as the "best country in Europe for LGBTI legal equality".
Christine Burns is a British political activist best known for her work with Press for Change and, more recently, as an internationally recognised health adviser. Burns was awarded an MBE in 2005 in recognition of her work representing transgender people. In 2011, she ranked 35th on the Independent on Sunday's annual Pink List of influential lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United Kingdom.
Lydia Annice Foy is an Irish trans woman notable for leading legal challenges regarding gender recognition in Ireland. In 1992 Foy had sex reassignment surgery, and began a 20-year battle to have her birth certificate reflect her gender identity. In 2007 the Irish High Court ruled that the relevant portions of the law of the Republic of Ireland were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but by February 2013 the law had not been changed and she began new legal proceedings to enforce the 2007 decision. As of 15 July 2015, Ireland has passed the Gender Recognition Bill 2014.
Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely. Third-wave feminists and fourth-wave feminists tend to view the struggle for trans rights as an integral part of intersectional feminism. Former president of the American National Organization for Women (NOW) Terry O'Neill has stated that the struggle against transphobia is a feminist issue, with NOW affirming that "trans women are women, trans girls are girls." Several studies have found that people who identify as feminists tend to be more accepting of trans people than those who do not.
P v S and Cornwall County Council was a landmark case of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which extended the scope of sex equality to discrimination against transsexuals.
Transgender rights in Australia have legal protection under federal and state/territory laws, but the requirements for gender recognition vary depending on the jurisdiction. For example, birth certificates, recognised details certificates, and driver licences are regulated by the states and territories, while Medicare and passports are matters for the Commonwealth.
Multiple countries legally recognize non-binary or third gender classifications. These classifications are typically based on a person's gender identity. In some countries, such classifications may only be available to intersex people, born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies."
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time, with the British transgender community facing ongoing challenges not experienced by cisgender Britons. These include various laws and public attitudes in regards to identity documents, as well as anti-discrimination measures used by or pertaining to transgender people, in the areas of employment, education, housing and social services, amongst others.
This article addresses the legal and regulatory history of transgender and transsexual people in the United States including case law and governmental regulatory action affecting their legal status and privileges, at the federal, state, municipal, and local level, and including military justice as well.
Gender self-identification is the concept that a person's legal sex or gender should be determined by their gender identity without any medical requirements, such as via statutory declaration.
Legal gender, or legal sex, is a sex or gender that is recognized under the law. Biological sex, sex reassignment and gender identity are used to determine legal gender. The details vary by jurisdiction.
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