Ministers to change law on transsexualmarriages

Transsexual men and women will be allowed to marry and apply for their birth certificates to be amended under a draft government Bill.

Ministers will announce this month a change in the law to end a 30-year battle by transsexuals for legal recognition of their new gender.

The move follows a judgment last year by the European Court of Human Rights that UK law breaches transsexuals' human rights.

Britain is one of four European countries - the others are Albania, Andorra and Ireland - that refuse transsexuals permission to alter their birth certificates. There are around 5,000 transsexual people in this country. They have been barred from marrying and from claiming pensions in their new gender.

Under the reforms a regulatory body will determine whether individuals have assumed a new gender. Those wishing to register will have to have lived under their new identity for two years.

However, surgery will not be a condition of registration and it will be possible for someone to hold a female birth certificate even if they retain male sexual organs.

In April this year, the House of Lords turned down the case of a transsexual woman who wanted her marriage of 23 years recognised. However, the law lords declared that English law was incompatible with the human rights of Elizabeth Bellinger, 56, and ordered the Lord Chancellor to pay half her legal costs.