FA-2025-000058 - [2025] EWHC 2685 (Fam)

The Applicant’s Representations at the Oral Hearing

The Panel arranged an oral hearing, conducted remotely on 20^th August 2024 (“the Oral Hearing”). The Applicant prepared a note to read to the Panel because he stated that he was nervous and wanted to get his thoughts clear. He had been told that the hearing would take “no more than half an hour”. In many ways, it is fortunate that he prepared the note because this enables me to have an accurate record of what he said. I set the note out in full:

“Before we start, I just want to let you know that I’m neurodivergent so I’ve written down everything I want to say and I was hoping you’d let me read this and then answer any questions that arise after. Just because I know otherwise I’ll lose my train of thought and I want to make sure you have all the information you need from me. I suppose I should go back to the start a little bit. I knew from a very, very young age that I wanted to be a boy, I thought that everyone felt that way so it wasn't really different to me. I only discovered what being transgender meant at around 11 but got scared out of coming out. When I did eventually come out at 17, I immediately changed my name, pronouns, and the way I presented. When I went to my doctor to get referred to the GIC, they told me that testosterone is permanently gonadotoxic, and that if I did want children I needed to start trying straight away, especially as having pre-existing fertility issues was going to make it a little more difficult. For me, I've also always known I wanted to be a parent, it was never a question of if, it was always a question of when. Obviously the waiting list to see the GIC is really long so I thought I had more than enough time. I suffered a miscarriage 17 and again at 19. I then discovered that actually testosterone doesn't make you permanently infertile so I took a break and started testosterone and had top surgery. I only took testosterone for 6 months before a relationship breakdown and I decided to seek IVF as a single person. I'm still on the IVF journey 4 years and another miscarriage later but the plan with my GIC has always been to restart testosterone as soon as I give birth. I toyed with the idea of surrogacy, but the cost is so prohibitive and it is not supported by the NHS. My only real option is to carry a child by myself. I plan to stick to he/him pronouns and present as male throughout my pregnancy and everyone is aware of this. As my pregnancy is so high risk with my previous miscarriages and medical history, I have actually already met my pregnancy team. The midwife deals specifically with transgender men who carry a pregnancy themselves so it's actually very common for transgender men to take this path. There's actually a whole network of us that I have reached out to. The McConnel case ruled that giving birth is not a female only thing. That it is possible to be a male mother, as the term is no longer gendered. I've spoken to lots of other trans men and have discovered that being rejected a GRC based on the desire to have children is becoming more common. I'm actually quite alarmed about this entire process because as far as I know there is no requirement for even medical transition in order to gain a GRC, much less a requirement for sterilisation. So I'm a little bit confused and worried that this is affecting my application despite living as male for almost 9 years now. I know it said that this is incompatible with my declaration to live as male for the rest of my life but I intend to give birth as a man and be known as dad by my child, despite being down as mother on their birth certificate.”

It is convenient, while dealing with this chronology, to note that following the Oral Hearing, the Applicant provided further medical evidence, as requested by the Panel, during the hearing. It is also important to highlight that contrary to what the Applicant appears to have said in his note, the Panel had not indicated that the desire to conceive was “incompatible” with living as a man until death but that they had “wondered if it is incompatible”. The purpose of the hearing was to investigate the issue further.

As foreshadowed above, the Applicant had, pursuant to the requirements of Section 3 GRA 2004, filed Dr. Pasterski’s report and Dr. Anna Barnes’ report. These address the issue of gender incongruence which I do not consider to be contentious in this case. There is no actual written record of the Panel’s request for further expert reports, at least none within the papers before me. However, what is clear is that two reports from Dr. James Barrett, two reports from Dr. Leighton Seal and a report from Dr. Jonny Coxon were forwarded to the Panel by the Applicant, on 25^th September 2024, and that the Panel confirmed receipt of them as providing sufficient evidence of gender incongruence, on 27^th September 2024.