Trans people must be allowed to have children

Good Law Project has appeared at the High Court to support a man who has been denied his gender recognition certificate. The Gender Recognition Panel rejected his application, saying that because he was trying to conceive, he had not been living as a man.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was ahead of its time, and has never required trans people to be sterilised in order to have their gender legally recognised. Since it passed, the European Court of Human Rights has consistently upheld this position, ruling that it is a violation of trans people’s human rights to require sterilisation before issuing a gender recognition certificate.

The European Convention on Human Rights was created after the second world war, in response to the horrific crimes of the Nazis. Among these crimes was a campaign of eugenics, targeting those the Nazis claimed were “hereditarily ill”, including racial minorities and disabled people. Four hundred thousand people were forcibly sterilised.

With the backlash against trans rights in full swing, for Jess O’Thomson, Good Law Project’s community outreach lead, it has “never been more important for us to fight decisions like these”.

“Trans people’s rights are being ripped up,” O’Thomson said, “and it feels like no-one has the courage to say so. Requiring that a minority does not have children reeks of eugenics.

“The decision of the Gender Recognition Panel violates trans people’s human rights.”

At a moment when trans people are already terrified, we believe the Gender Recognition Panel has got the law wrong. We need to fight these archaic rollbacks together, before it’s too late.

Good Law Project has instructed Gayatri Sarathy of Blackstone Chambers to appear before the High Court. We will publish this important decision – which will be anonymised – as soon as we can.