This Act decriminalised homosexuality – though actually resulted in an increase in convictions for homosexuality. This was because it allowed sex between consenting adult men over the age of 21 only provided nobody else was in the same building – therefore two men taking a room in a hotel were often reported, and subsequently raided and arrested. Since transsexual women were treated as male until after surgery – even if they were living and presenting as female -- many were arrested under this law, as homosexual men.
Corbett v Corbett 1970
In 1970, April Ashley’s divorce made matters worse. Until then, post-surgery trans women had been able to change their birth certificates unofficially, to reflect their acquired gender. However, in the court case annulling her marriage to Arthur Corbett (Corbett v Corbett ), Justice Ormrod determined that trans people could not ever change sex, and therefore even after full gender reassignment, trans people remained legally in their birth gender. This made them unable to marry, and inhumanely treated in all legal matters, including imprisonment.
P v S & Cornwall CC (1994) ECJ, Case C13/94
This judgement in the European Court of Justice prohibited workplace and vocational training discrimination against trans people who are 'intending to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone gender reassignment’ - Includes voluntary work. This judgement meant that all UK courts had to comply with the ruling and resulted in legislation to include trans people in the Sex Discrimination Act and largely to restrict the effect of the European judgement.
Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999
In respect of employment and training, the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act were extended to include trans people, provided they were intending to undergo, undergoing or had undergone gender reassignment. The act brought in a number of exemptions such as personal searches, personal services, and religious organisations. Some of those exemptions have now been overruled, though others still exist – especially for religious organisations, who are still able to discriminate.
Goodwin v. UK and I v UK (2002)
The European Court of Human Rights held that the UK government’s failure to alter the birth certificates of transsexual people or to allow them to marry in their new gender role was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. This led directly to new legislation to once again clarify and restrict the extent of the judgement.
Gender Recognition Act 2004
Following extensive consultation and considerable objection from religious organisations, the Gender Recognition Act provided full legal recognition of a transperson’s new gender for ALL purposes, including marriage, new birth certificate, pension rights, social security benefits and privacy. In order to qualify for legal recognition, a trans person has to show that they have been diagnosed as having gender dysphoria, and that they have lived in their acquired gender role for 2 years, and that they intend to do so permanently, for the remainder of their life.
Gender Recognition (Disclosure of Information) Order 2005
Despite parliament refusing to grant exemption from the Gender Recognition Act to religious organisations, shortly after the act was passed, this statutory instrument was introduced quietly. It essentially exempted churches from all penalties, therefore enabling them to refuse a trans person any involvement in religious activities.
Civil Partnership Act 2004
This is an important piece of legislation for trans people because many trans women are already married to women, and would like to remain married. However, in order to be recognised in their acquired gender, all trans people must first divorce their partner, and then enter into a civil partnership once their gender is legally recognised. It is possible to do all this in one day, but it does create some legal issues. There are at least 150 trans women who face this difficulty, most of whom do not wish to get divorced. Most trans men, if in a relationship when they transition, tend to be in relationships with women – but if the couple have entered into a civil partnership, it will have to be dissolved before a Gender Recognition Certificate can be granted. The UK government is totally opposed to same sex marriage and civil partnerships are not permitted for opposite sex partners.
Equality Act 2006
The Equality Act 2006 is important in four particular ways.
Firstly, it set up the creation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Prior to this Act there were three separate commissions dealing with Race, Disability and Gender. The commission dealing with Gender was the Equal Opportunities Commission. All three have now been merged to become the EHRC and four additional diversity strands or protected grounds have been added – Sexual Orientation, Age, Religion and Faith and Gender Reassignment (although this is often considered part of the Gender strand)
Secondly, the Equalities Act introduced the Gender Equality Duty – which followed the format of the Race Equality and Disability Equality duties in requiring public sector organisations to take positive action to prevent discrimination.
Thirdly, it set out the framework for new legislation to prevent discrimination against lesbian and gay people in the delivery of goods and services.
Finally, the EHRC is also responsible for drafting the new Single Equalities Bill due to be presented to parliament later this year which will include a new Single equality Duty. This duty will extend the duties to the other strands – and remove anomalies that have developed in the treatment of discrimination in the different strands -- moving us towards a unified approach to discrimination, no matter what the cause. This will make it easier to deal with discrimination issues where there are multiple issues. E.g., if a 60 year old black disabled trans women is discriminated against, under current legislation, different rules would apply depending on the nature of the discrimination.
Gender Equality Duty – April 2007
The Gender Equality Duty is crucially important for Trans people because it totally changes the way discrimination is treated within the Public sector. The Gender Equality Duty requires Public sector organisations to take promote equal opportunities and take action to prevent discrimination and harassment on the ground of gender, including gender reassignment. The Duty came into force in April 2007, but many public sector organisations are still not effectively enforcing it. Each public sector organisation is required to undertake consultation to establish the primary issues in their area of responsibility and also to prepare and publish a Gender Equality Scheme detailing how they intend to prevent discrimination and harassment, and promote equality of opportunity.
The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
This made it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian people in the delivery of goods and services. For example, prior to this, a guest house or hotel could refuse to provide a room to two man because they were gay. The legislation met with considerable resistance during its passage though parliament and, notably, trans people were not included in the Equalities Act, and so were not protected by this legislation. That said, a lot of trans people are often considered gay or lesbian at some stage in their lives, whether before or after transition.
European Directive 2004/113/EC December 2007 – (December 21st 2007)
One reason for trans people being excluded from the goods and services legislation related to sexual orientation was the prior existence of this European Directive, which required the UK government to extend the Sex Discrimination Act to include gender reassignment.
Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulations 2008
This amendment provides protection for trans people, making it illegal to discriminate against us in the delivery of goods and services. The amendment was supposed to have been put in place by December 21st 2007 – but due to an objection by Ian Paisley, it was not passed until April 2008. Once again, the church was provided with comprehensive exemptions on the grounds of religious belief.
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