Gender Recognition
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 applies throughout the UK and enables transsexual people to apply to a Gender Recognition Panel for a Gender Recognition Certificate.
The panel are part of the Tribunals group of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The acquired gender of the applicant will be recognised in law from the date on which they are granted a full Gender Recognition Certificate; they can then enjoy all the rights appropriate to a person of that gender.
How to Apply for Gender Recognition
Details of how to apply, and the relevant application forms, are on the Gender Recognition Panel website.
Gender Recognition Panel, PO Box 6987, Leicester LE1 6ZX
grpenquiries@tribunals.gsi.gov.uk
What will happen?
The Gender Recognition Panel will notify the Registrar General for England and Wales of the issue of a Gender Recognition Certificate to a person born or adopted in England or Wales. The Registrar General holds a Gender Recognition Register in which the birth of a person whose acquired gender has been legally recognised will be registered again showing the new name(s) and gender. Registrars General for Scotland and Northern Ireland hold similar registers for people born in those countries.
A draft of the information to be recorded will be sent to the applicant to clarify what the new birth certificate will look like, and to resolve any questions before the record is made. Once the applicant confirms that the information on the draft is correct, the new record is created in the register.
Where the transsexual person was adopted or has a birth record made overseas by, for example, a British Consul, the new register will reflect that fact. A confidential link between the original and the new details will be maintained by the Registrar General. Current contact details such as the address will not be recorded in the register. The Gender Recognition Register is not open to public inspection or search.
New Birth Certificates
Once a person who was registered in the UK, or born to a UK citizen abroad and registered by HM Forces or British Consul, has been granted a full Gender Recognition Certificate they will be able to obtain both full and short birth certificates showing his or her acquired gender. There will be nothing on the certificate to indicate it was compiled from the Gender Recognition Register. Details of how to apply for birth certificates, and the cost, will be sent to the applicant with the draft of the information to be recorded in the Gender Recognition Register.
For further information on the registration process please contact:
Gender Recognition Team, General Register Office, Room C202, Smedley Hydro, Trafalgar Road, Southport PR8 2HH.
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Tameside Register Office
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
Tameside One
PO BOX 317
Ashton-Under-Lyne
OL6 0GS
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