Background
The Act was drafted in response to court rulings from the European Court of Human Rights.
The previous precedent dated back to 1970, when Arthur Cameron Corbett, 3rd Baron Rowallan had his marriage annulled on the basis that his wife, April Ashley, being a transsexual woman, was legally male. This argument was accepted by the judge, and the legal test for gender in the UK had been since been based on the judgement in Corbett v Corbett; it had even led to the curiosity of a legal marriage between two lesbians since one had been born male.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 11 July 2002, in Christine Goodwin v The United Kingdom, Case No 28957/1995, (also known as Christine Goodwin and I v United Kingdom 2 FCR 577), that "the UK Government had discriminated based on the following : Violation of Articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights". Following this judgement, the UK Government had to introduce new legislation to comply.
Read more about this topic: Gender Recognition Act 2004
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