Transgender man is fighting for his right to be named as father on child’s birth certificate

A transgender man who gave birth to his child was told that he would need to be registered as the child’s mother on the birth certificate, despite the fact that he is legally now a man. He has launched a legal challenge to this decision by the Registrar General, and is arguing that forcing him to register as a mother would breach his human rights (under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998). He is saying that the current law relating to the registration of births is outdated, and is discriminatory to trans and intersex parents.

The High Court is due to make a decision on this in 2019, and it will be interesting to see how this unfolds. It certainly seems that the law needs to reflect the fact that families now come in different shapes and sizes, and the traditional model for birth registration is no longer suitable or appropriate for all families. Forcing someone to register as a parent in a sex with which they no longer identify seems unnecessary, causing a huge amount of distress to new parents who may have had a long and difficult journey to get to this point.

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