Gender Recognition Act

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) is an Act of the UK Parliament that lets eligible transgender adults gain legal recognition of their gender through a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). A GRC allows a person to update their birth certificate and be recognized in law as their acquired gender, currently only male or female, since non-binary is not a recognized legal sex in the UK. Applicants must show they have lived in their acquired gender for a period and that they intend to do so permanently, with their case reviewed by a Gender Recognition Panel. Critics say the process is intrusive and medicalized, prompting long-running calls for reform toward self-identification. Most trans people in the UK do not hold a GRC. In 2025 the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers that, for the Equality Act 2010, sex means biological sex.