Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC)

A Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) is a document issued under the UK's Gender Recognition Act 2004. It lets an adult with gender dysphoria change their legally recognized gender and, once granted, obtain a new birth certificate. Applicants apply to a Gender Recognition Panel and must currently choose male or female, since non-binary is not a recognized legal sex in the UK. The process is often described as lengthy and medicalized. Relatively few people hold one, with about 8,464 full certificates granted by March 2024. In 2025 the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers that a person with a female GRC is not a 'woman' for purposes of the Equality Act 2010, which reads 'sex' there as biological sex.