Leading Transgender Cases

O v P and Q [2024] EWHC 1077 (Fam) concerned an application by a young person (Q) aged 16 who had a gender dsyphoria diagnosis and sought treatment. The mother did not accept that Q was transgender and applied to court for a prohibited steps order to prevent that father from arranging treatment for Q and for the court to make a best interests declaration under its inherent jurisdiction. The father accepted that Q was transgender and applied for interim orders to be discharged and for the legal proceedings to come to an end. The court ruled that it was in Q’s best interests for the legal proceedings to end and discharged the interim orders that were in place. Additionally, the court sought an undertaking from the father that he would not fund or facilitate gender dsyphoria treatment for Q whilst he was a minor. Moreover, the court did not make any declaration as to medical or other treatment and declined to make a declaration that any prescribing of puberty blockers or hormone treatment to a person under the age of 18  by a private clinic should be subject to the oversight of the court.

Re J (Transgender: Puberty Blocker and Hormone Replacement Therapy) [2024] EWHC 922 concerned a gender dysphoria case in the High Court involving a young person aged 16 1/2 seeking cross-hormone therapy treatment. J was assigned female at birth but considered himself male. J experienced serious difficulties with his mental health and had been diagnosed with anorexia and autistic spectrum disorder. J’s mother supported J’s wish to undergo cross-hormone therapy, but this was opposed by J’s father. The case involved complex and evolving issues around capacity and consent to medical treatment and the extent to which the court should intervene and override consent by an over-16-year-old but under 18-year-old. The Court endorsed an agreed plan for the next six months, namely that J would proceed with an assessment by Gender Plus and that the court should be careful to move forward on a case by case, decision by decision basis.

R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General for England and Wales [2020] EWCA Civ 559 concerned an appeal by Mr Freddy McConnell against a High Court ruling by the President of the Family Division that as a transgender man who had undergone fertility treatment at a UK licensed clinic, conceived using his own eggs and given birth must be registered as mother on his child’s birth certificate. The Court of Appeal ruled that the legislative scheme of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 required Mr McConnell to be registered as mother, rather than father, parent or gestational parent and this requirement did not breach Mr McConnell or his child’s Article 8 rights.

R (on the app of TT) v Registrar General for England & Wales & Others [2019] EWHC 2384 (Fam) concerned a high profile application by a transgender man, Mr Freddy McConnell before the President of the Family Division in the High Court. The court was required for the first time to define the term ‘mother’ under the law of England and Wales. Mr McConnell, a transgender man, conceived and gave birth to a son in January 2018 following fertility treatment at a UK clinic comprising his own eggs and donor sperm. He then brought a claim in Judicial Review to quash the decision of the Registrar General that he would have to be registered as his child’s ‘mother’ when he wished to be registered as ‘father’ or ‘parent’.

The Queen (on the application of JK) v Registrar General for England and Wales & Others [2015] EWHC (Admin) concerned an application by a transgender woman (JK) in the Administrative Court who challenged the requirement that she be registered as ‘father’ on her two children’s birth certificates and the Registrar General’s refusal to register her as ‘parent’ or ‘father/parent’. JK was born male and married KK in 2007 and KK gave birth to two children conceived naturally with JK’s sperm in early 2012 and spring 2013. After KK’s conception of their second child, JK was assessed and diagnosed with gender dysphoria and started a course of feminising hormone treatment and was put on a waiting list for gender reassignment surgery. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Hickinbottom, ruled that a man who changes gender to female must be registered as ‘father’ on the full birth certificate of the child in respect of whom they are the biological father. Additionally, the birth registration scheme was not in breach of article 8 or 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).