Gender Recognition Act 2004 applies to jurisdiction United Kingdom
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allows people who have gender dysphoria to change their legal gender. It came into effect on 4 April 2005.Operation of the law
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 enables transgender people to apply to receive a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). A Gender Recognition Certificate is the document issued that shows that a person has satisfied the criteria for legal recognition in the acquired gender. The act gives people with gender dysphoria legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender identity allowing them to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate. People whose birth was registered in the United Kingdom or abroad with the British authorities are able to obtain a birth certificate showing their recognised legal sex. People granted a full GRC are from the date of issue, considered in the eyes of the law to be of their "acquired gender" in most situations. Two main exceptions to trans people's legal recognition are that the descent of peerages will remain unchanged (important only for primogeniture inheritance) and a right of conscience for Church of England clergy (who are normally obliged to marry any two eligible people by law).
Prior to the issuing of a Gender Recognition Certificate employers are able to exclude trans people as a "genuine occupational requirement", and organisations are allowed to exclude trans people from single-sex or separate-sex services as "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim". A GRC changes an individual's legal sex "for all purposes" and exclusion would be deemed sex discrimination as defined by Section 14 of the Act. 
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 aimed to safeguard the privacy of transgender people by defining information in relation to the gender recognition process as protected information. Anyone who acquires that information in an official capacity may be breaking the law if they disclosed it without the subject's consent. However, in the first seven years of operation, birth certificates drawn from the Gender Recognition Register were immediately distinguishable from a natal birth certificate, since they had only nine columns of information, omitting the item "Signature, description and residence of informant" that appears on birth certificates. These Gender Recognition Certificates also replaced the rubric "Certified to be a true copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Births in the District above mentioned", which appears on birth certificates, with the rubric "Certified to be a true copy of a record in the custody of the Registrar General". These issues were corrected by the Gender Recognition Register (Amendment) Regulations 2011.
A Gender Recognition Panel, including medical and legal experts, considers evidence submitted to it to assess whether the criteria for issuing a Gender Recognition Certificate have been met. The evidence must show a documented mental health diagnosis of gender dysphoria. If the person involved is in a legally recognised marriage, they require spousal consent for the certificate to be issued, after which a new marriage certificate can be issued; if the spouse does not consent, the person will be issued an Interim Gender Recognition Certificate, which for a limited period can then be used as grounds for annulment of the marriage, but otherwise has no status.Section 16 provides that acquiring a new gender under the act does not affect the descent of peerages or estates that devolve with them.