Committee of experts to vet transsexuals' claims for legal recognition
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A committee of medical and legal experts is to be set up to approve applications from people who want their change of sex to be given legal recognition.
The plan for a regulatory authority is part of the Government's commitment to giving full legal and social recognition to Britain's 5,000 transsexuals. Under plans announced yesterday, transsexuals will for the first time be allowed to marry in their adoptive sex and apply for a substitute birth certificate. Those who want to register their new gender will have to show they have lived "successfully" in that state for at least two years and submit medical evidence to support their application.
A transsexual will not need to have surgery to register under a new sex.
Rosie Winterton, a minister at the Lord Chancellor's Department, said that, for example, someone born male could hold a female birth certificate even if male sex organs were retained. They would have to satisfy the authorising body that they had been diagnosed as having gender dysphoria, a state of unease about their sex.
Transsexuals will keep rights and obligations incurred under their old gender, such as being a parent, Ms Winterton said. To protect privacy, the public will not be able to make a connection between the new certificates issued by the Registrar General and original birth certificates. Although the new version will be "indistinguishable" from original birth certificates, those will remain on file unamended. Some agencies, including the police and Inland Revenue, will have access to the original documents.
Ms Winterton said the Government would consult pension and insurance companies to see what access they needed to original documents. She added: "It will be possible for historical records to be traced if necessary, for certain categories of organisation."
The Government proposals follow a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in July that UK law breached the rights of transsexuals.