A UK court ruled that a transgender man seeking pregnancy is still entitled to legal gender recognition.
A transgender man has won a landmark High Court case affirming that his desire to conceive a child does not prevent him from receiving a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
The man, identified as W, was denied the certificate in February by the Gender Recognition Panel, which questioned “why it was not incompatible to live as a man when trying to conceive and carry a pregnancy”.
However, Mr Justice Hayden overturned the decision on Friday, ruling that the panel had been “plainly wrong”.
“It is clear that there are two main currents coursing through the applicant’s life: his clear and settled identification as male… and his desire to have a family,” he wrote. “To require him to abandon either one for the other would be to dismantle and fracture the person he is.”
W, who paused testosterone treatment to undergo IVF after several miscarriages, said he was “absolutely ecstatic”.
“This is a huge victory for trans people’s human rights,” said Good Law Project’s Jess O’Thomson.