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UK lawmaker calls for posthumous gender recognition for transgender individuals
Labour Party MP Charlotte Nichols has asked amendments in Britain's Gender Recognition Act (GRA) of 2004 to allow posthumous changes to gender.
A lawmaker in the United Kingdom has demanded a law to allow changing the legally recognised gender of transgender persons to match their actual gender identity after their death.
Labour Party MP Charlotte Nichols has asked amendments in Britain's Gender Recognition Act (GRA) of 2004 to allow posthumous changes to gender, reported The Telegraph. In a written question to the Parliament, Nichols recently asked if the Act could be changed "to allow transgender people who are deceased to be legally remembered by the gender they lived by".
Nichols said that her question follows a recent petition regarding amending the GRA, reported The Telegraph.
"The genesis of the petition was the murder of my constituent Brianna Ghey, whose life was brutally cut short before she was old enough to have formal legal recognition of who she was and how she will be remembered by her family, friends and our community,"said the Labour Party MP.
Brianna Ghey was a 16-year-old British transgender girl who was murdered in a planned attack by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in February 2023. Recently Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were jailed for at least 22 and 20 years respectively. It was found that Ratcliffe was partly motivated by hostility to Brianna’s transgender identity.
"At that time, the Government said they did not believe any reforms were necessary, but it is something I continue to have raised with me by my constituents and will continue to raise with the Government accordingly so that this can be an option available to bereaved families should they so wish," Nichols added.
However, equalities minister Stuart Andrew has said that the government had no plans to further amend the Act. "Where a person was using their new gender with an organisation prior to their death, and that was on their personal records, then we anticipate that the organisation would engage with their family members using the new gender," he was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
