What are the legal consequences of Repealing the GRA?

The Gender Recognition Act (GRA) was passed in 2004. Much has changed in terms of the legal, social, and cultural landscape since then. At the time, there was very little in the way of organised opposition to the law, designed to provide some mechanism for legally recognising a ‘reassigned gender’ in the form of a change to legal sex. In recent years, a large movement of feminist advocates have rallied around the position that the GRA should be repealed.

In this post, I trace the legal history that led to the enactment of the GRA, its position within the UK’s legal framework of equality and human rights law, and the consequences that would arise if the GRA were repealed. In short, those wishing to remove the legal effects of gender recognition from our law entirely would need to advocate for repealing not just the GRA but also amending or repealing the Human Rights Act 1998, placing the United Kingdom in breach of it’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. Even here, courts may interpret domestic law to be compatible with ECHR obligations. To assuredly prevent that from happening, the UK would need to repeal or amend key provision of the Human Rights Act, potentially even leaving the Convention altogether. That would have significant implication for other international treaties such as the Good Friday Agreement.

All of this is to say that there are very good reasons not to repeal the Gender Recognition Act, some to do with the careful balance that our equality and human rights law currently strikes, and some to do with the costs involved in upending our human rights framework. Those who are strongly committed to repealing the Act may not care about these consequences. At the very least, one should be aware of just what would be involved in repealing the GRA.