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Transgender parents, registration of children on birth and human rights
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The registration of children after birth is an important and significant moment for parents. On first blush there is no obvious link between registration of a child’s birth and the gender of the child’s parents. However, this can be a particularly challenging moment for transgender parents.
The difficulty for transgender parents has been highlighted, through the courts, after a parent was denied the ability to register his child’s birth after a birth registrar told him that he could not be recorded as the child’s ‘father’ or ‘parent’ on the birth certificate.
The above situation arose when the parent asked the registrar to record that he was the child’s ‘father’ or ‘parent’, as opposed to the child’s mother. The parent had given birth to the child, but he asserted that he did not want, nor would it be accurate, for him to be recorded as the child’s mother. That would have been inaccurate and disregarded his obtaining of a Gender Recognition Certificate, under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which provided for his transition at law.
Read the full article here.
