may someone shed any legal light?

[Ciel]

as a little background: i am originally from the Philippines and have been staying and working in the UK since early 2010. i am in the process of transition and have already spoken to my manager regarding this change. as part of the many intricacies, the legalities must also be sorted so as to avoid confusion of documents from past, present, and possible future documents i may acquire.
in my research, i found that Philippine legislation pertaining to gender change in by reason of sexual reassignment does not exist. all official documents from the Philippines would still be marked with the gender assigned at birth regardless of any medical reasons and/or SRS.

... Damn ...

here i come to my question:
would i still be able to use both the Deed Poll Service and Gender Recognition Panel to change my gender on official documents from the UK? i am not really planning to change my name, just the gender and title - so it would reflect "F" for Female and "Miss/Ms" instead of "Mr".
if this isn't possible, is there any work-around to bring about a sort-of-similar result? thanks!

[noeleena]

Hi,

Have you become a citizen of the British Comonwealth. or England in this case, it would be like can i change my legal documents in Austraila, change my birth certs or name , no because im not a citizen of Austraila, i live in & was born in New Zealand. so all my records are here in my county of birth,

As far as i know you would have to get all info about you from your county so i would go to the High Commison or your rep from your country, & find out from them,

or Imigration change of residency,

,,,noeleena...

[Nigella]

First of all the Gender Recognition Panel only issues the documents to change your UK BIRTH CERTIFICATE, other official UK documents that show your gender can be changed with a letter from your Gender Psychologist/Pyschiatrist.

The deed poll service will help with officially changing the NAME AND TITLE you wish to be known by but not the gender. You have said that you don't want to change your name, so I am assuming that your given name is gender neutral.

As a final note (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=DIY+Name+and+title+change)

[Ciel]

ok... before i posted to this forum, i have done some research. its just that the scenario isn't as straight forward as most cases. so, despite the daft nature of this question, i posted anyway.
thank you for the responses.

[RADER]

What Pass-Port do you have; You might be able to change that.
Rader

[Ciel]

philippine passport. i've emailed a lawyer acquaintance of my intentions. i'm still waiting for the reply... i'm not holding my breath though.

[VanTG]

Contact your mp, they are there to help constituents with problems in the government

[Serana]

I can say for pretty much 100% that once you're classed as a "naturalized british citizen" (which I'm pretty sure means "owns a UK passport") that you can, after 2 years, go to the "gender recognition panel" (I can't remember the name off the top of my head), and as long as you have been "living as a woman for 2 years with evidence to support this, including; Deed Poll, change of name on official documents (like bank accounts and bills companies if you have any) and can prove that you're completely happy with what you're doing, then it should go without a hitch.

I would also maybe recommend going to something like the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) if you don't mind speaking to people about this issue. The CAB is there to help people with getting the right advice on pretty much anything, and they're obviously equality based (being a government run thing).

When I discussed this stuff with my key worker at my GIC, I was pretty much told that they'd send off the evidence that I had been living full time since Aug '11, and that it wouldn't be sorted from there. I don't see why there should be any issue, as long as you become a naturalized UK citizen.

However, as you still hold a Philippine passport, I would definitely recommend the CAB, as they will be able to give you free, useful advice.

Also: http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/gender-recognition-panel This may help some.

That link is for the official GRP information. If you take a gander about that you might also find some information that can help you. I'll see if perhaps I can do some digging for you too, and have a look through some legislation on the subject. The keywords would be to look for it saying you need to be a British Citizen. As long as it doesn't mention any of those words, then I don't see why they can't.

Though I'm not 100% sure, you might be able to look into connected documents if some are both Philippines and UK related they should (hopefully) be change-able too. Also, with a British Passport, it is pretty much a cinch to change the gender on it as long as you provide evidence and intent to live as the "new role". This is what I did 6 months after the initial transition and got the passport changed.

Sorry for rambling on, feel free to drop me a private message if you have any questions.

PS; there are deed poll services that offer title changing on their service, where you can change your title to... well, pretty much whatever you want in some cases. If you want a link to the one I used I'll dig it up and I'll private message you it, if you'd like.

[Ciel]

thank you very much for all that information. i've come across this workaround as well. it seems i have to wait it out for a little while. ;) patience and patience it is.