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Gender Recognition Act 2004

7.On 10th April 2003, the House of Lords gave judgment in the case of Bellinger v Bellinger [2003] 2 All ER 593. Mrs. Bellinger, a male-to-female transsexual person, was seeking legal recognition of her 1981 marriage to a man. Their Lordships were sympathetic to Mrs Bellinger's plight but ruled that the marriage was void. They declared that section 11(c) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 was incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998. The result of this was that legislation was needed to enable transsexual people to marry in their new gender.

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