To change your gender on a UK driving licence or passport, it is not necessary to have started hormone treatment or to have had any surgery.  All that is needed is your statutory declaration of change of name and a doctor’s  letter stating either that you are “a female-to-male transsexual person who is living permanently as a man” or that you are “a male-to-female transsexual person who is living permanently as a woman”.  However, changing your gender on your UK driving licence or UK passport does not change your legal gender.  Your legal gender is tied to your UK birth certificate.

You will also have to inform all organisations you deal with, such as Employer Records, DSS, Mortgage Lender/Landlord, Utilities, Insurance Companies, Banks, etc.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 created a process to enable transsexual people to get their UK birth certificates and legal gender changed.  To apply for gender recognition, you need to show that you have been  diagnosed by a gender identity clinic as having gender dysphoria and that you have been fully living in your acquired gender for at least 2 years.  You do not need to have had any surgery.

You can get information, application forms etc. from The Gender Recognition Panel, whose  address is : -


If you apply for gender recognition while married or in a civil partnership then you will only be able to get an interim certificate.  The marriage or civil partnership would need to be ended to get a full gender recognition certificate.  Then, if you wished, you could get a civil partnership with your partner in place of the original marriage or a marriage in place of the original civil partnership.  The change from marriage to civil partnership or vice-versa can be organised to all take place on the same day.