18 December 2025
The case of FZ v MZ & FZ v Y Council [2025] EWHC 3338 (Fam) brings into focus legal difficulties encountered by a transgender man with a Gender Recognition Certificate in obtaining legal parenthood and birth registration for two children in England and Wales. It tested the law for the first time on whether he could be lawfully registered as father on his second child’s birth certificate following his wife’s privately arranged artificial conception with donor sperm outside of a licensed UK fertility clinic. It also necessitated a claim for Judicial Review to quash his incorrect registration on his first child’s birth certificate, there being no statutory power to enable the Registrar General to register afresh without leaving the initial registration manually struck through on the register of births and deaths. Louisa Ghevaert Associates acted for the Applicant (Claimant) in this case.
Background
The Applicant and Respondent met in 2020 and commenced a relationship. The following year, in 2021, the Applicant obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate (“GRC”) which recognised him as a transgender man. The parties married in 2022 and prior to their marriage, the Respondent conceived their first child by privately arranged artificial conception with the sperm of a known donor. By the time their child was born in 2023, the parties had married.
Following the birth, they went to register their first child’s birth. The Applicant took his GRC with him and informed the Registrar that he was a transgender man. The Registrar did not ask any questions, conferred briefly with a colleague and then registered the Respondent as the mother and the Applicant as the father. In doing so, the parties were unaware that their child’s registration was legally incorrect.
A few months later, the Applicant and Respondent received a letter from the Council informing them of the error. It stated that “…a mistake was made in completing the registration and we have acted contrary to the legislation relating to the registration of children conceived via assisted conception. This means that [the Applicant] should not have been included in the registration as [the child’s] father”.
Later in 2023, the parties conceived a second child following the same process. The key legal difference being that by the time of their second child’s conception, the Applicant was married to the Respondent. This created a legally untested, difficult and contentious legal issue about whether the Applicant could be registered as father on his second child’s birth certificate; bringing into play the interaction between Section 35 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (“HFE Act 2008”) and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (“GRA 2004”).
Legal Parenthood & Birth Registration: First Child
Thereafter, the parties commenced legal proceedings in the English Family Court for a range of orders to remedy their first child’s incorrect birth registration. In doing so, they accepted that because their first child was artificially conceived with donor sperm before they married the donor was the father under common law. Accordingly, a stand-alone step-parent parental responsibility order was made in favour of the Applicant, along with a joint ‘lives with’ child arrangements order on 7 November 2024 so that both parties shared parental responsibility for their child. The Attorney General and the Registrar General declined the Court’s invitation to intervene in the proceedings. The Applicant sought a declaration of (non) parentage under Section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986 (“FLA 1986”) that he was not the child’s father and a step-parent adoption order as this was the only way he could obtain legal parenthood for his child. Additionally, the parties issued a claim for Judicial Review in the Administrative Court to quash their child’s incorrect birth registration and permit a fresh registration, to avoid a lasting ‘mark’ of the error that had been made and which risked exposing the Applicant’s status as a transgender man if the register was checked. The Government Legal Department (named as an Interested Party) subsequently confirmed on 13 February 2025 that they would not oppose the application for Judicial Review as its grounds accurately reflected the legal position. The Council confirmed it would not oppose the application as well.
The Applicant proceeded to satisfy all of the ‘adoption preliminaries’ under the Adoption and Children Act 2002. He obtained a supportive Annex A Report from the Adoption Agency and CAFCASS provided a letter confirming there were no safeguarding concerns and supporting the grant of an adoption order. At Final Hearing on 15 July 2025, Mrs Justice Lieven therefore granted the declaration of (non) parentage and a step-parent adoption order in favour of the Applicant to confer legal parentage upon him and extinguish the legal status of the known donor. She also quashed the original registration to enable a de novo birth registration, being only the third such published case where a quashing order had been made to correct legal errors relating to a child’s birth registration.
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Legal Parenthood & Birth Registration: Second Child
The Applicant also issued an application for a declaration of parentage under Section 55A FLA 1986 that he was the legal father of the second child. Section 35(1) HFE Act 2008 states that where a woman (i.e. the Respondent) is married to “a man” at the time of her artificial conception with donor sperm he can be registered as “the father” (unless it can be shown he did not consent to her artificial conception). By virtue of Section 9(1) of the GRA 2004, the Applicant had obtained a GRC which treated him for all purposes in his acquired gender (male) and he was married to the Respondent. However, a statutory exemption in Section 12 GRA 2004 was also in play and provided that the Applicant’s acquired gender “does not affect the status of the person as the father or mother of a child”. This raised a novel and untested legal issue which the English Family Court was tasked with determining for the first time, there being no caselaw which directly determined the issue.
The Applicant asserted that he was neither a biological nor a gestational parent and sought to be registered as father due to his marriage to the mother. He asserted that his case should be distinguished from the previous McConnell (1) rulings where it was determined that Mr McConnell, a transgender man, was his child’s mother as a matter of biological reality having conceived with his own eggs, donor sperm and given birth. He also asserted that there was no justification relating to the child’s right to biological certainty about their parentage. Furthermore, he asserted that if he could not be registered as the child’s father under Section 35 HFE Act 2008 then the statutory scheme in the HFE Act 2008 lost its coherence, since he could not be registered a second female parent under Section 42 HFE Act 2008 as he was not married to the Respondent as a woman. Moreover, the Applicant asserted that if he could not be registered as father of his second child, this breached his Article 8 rights (to private and family life) under the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”).
Mrs Justice Lieven ruled that as a matter of domestic law, the Applicant could not be registered as his second child’s father under Section 35 HFE Act 2008. She ruled that although he entered his marriage to the mother as a man by virtue of his GRC under Section 9(1) GRA 2004, he was not “a man” for the purposes of parenthood due to statutory operation of Section 12 GRA 2004. She found that the aim of Section 12 GRA 2004 is to prevent the extension of the legal effect of a GRC to parenthood status. In other words, biological sex rather than an acquired gender determines parenthood status. She further ruled that he could not be registered as second parent under Section 42 HFE Act 2008 as he was not married as “a woman”.
Mrs Justice Lieven then considered whether the Applicant’s Article 8 rights were engaged and if so whether there was a legitimate aim for an interference with these. In doing so, she noted that this was “fraught with issues of social policy, ethical judgements and morality” and found that the legislature was afforded a wide margin of appreciation. She went on to find that the aim being pursued in Section 12 GRA 2004 was legitimate, although there may be “strongly divergent” views about this. The maintenance of a coherent birth registration system is part of the reason for this. Added to this, in her view, it aims to remove rights acquired under Section 9 GRA 2004 from determining parenthood status whether through biological reality or marriage. She then determined the question of proportionality of whether maintaining a person’s biological sex for the purposes of registering parenthood is sufficiently important to justify the interference under Article 8(1). She found that this was policy question for Parliament rather than the Court.
She then went on to determine whether a fair balance had been struck. Whilst she accepted that the Applicant was legally unable to be registered as his second child’s father, his day-to-day parenting and care could be addressed by means of a child arrangements order and this also conferred parental responsibility upon him so that he shared this with the Respondent. He could also apply for a step-parent adoption to give him the same rights as the father registered on the birth certificate. However, she accepted that his inability to be registered as father put him at a disadvantage as a transgender man because he could not be registered as second parent either. It therefore follows that “there is, or may be, a lacuna or inconsistence in the statutory regime”, although it was appropriate for the Court to defer to Parliament’s considered judgment in the GRA 2004 and the HFE Act 2008. Moreover, she determined that there was no breach of Article 8 in finding that the Applicant could not be registered as his second child’s father and no issues were raised under Article 14 either as the issues of justification are the same.
In conclusion, the Applicant’s status as a transgender non-biological and non-gestational parent meant he was not legally recognised as his second child’s legal father nor as second female parent and he could not be registered as such on his child’s birth certificate under English law. If he wished to obtain legal parentage, he would be required to apply for a step-parent adoption order instead.
To read the full case click here.
Fertility and Family Law
As this case demonstrates, transgender family building and parenting can raise complex legal issues under English law. This makes it important to understand and successfully navigate complex statute governing legal parentage, birth registration, parental responsibility and legal arrangements for the care and upbringing of a child as a transgender parent in England and Wales.
Find out more about Transgender and Non Binary Fertility and Family Law.
Need an expert fertility lawyer or family lawyer? For further information and assistance please contact Louisa Ghevaert by email louisa@louisaghevaertassociates.co.uk or by telephone +44 (0)20 7965 8399.
Images: Louisa Ghevaert CEO and Founder Louisa Ghevaert Associates, Royal Courts of Justice London
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(1) R (on the application of McConnell) v The Registrar General for England and Wales [2020] EWCA Civ 559 an appeal (Lord Burnett CJ, King and Singh LJJ) from Sir Andrew McFarlane (P(R (on the application of TT) v The Registrar for England and Wales [2019] EWHC 2384 (Fam)).
