1970 - Trans people had been able to change their passports and driving licences to indicate their preferred binary gender since at least 1970. Transgender people were also able to have their birth certificate informally amended to reflect their gender identity. This changed after the ruling in Corbett v Corbett [1970] 2 All ER 33 at the High Court of Justice in 1970 which found one of the defendants, a trans woman (April Ashley) to be legally male, thereafter preventing the amendment of the sex marker on birth certificates for other than clerical errors.
1972 – Sweden becomes the first country in the world to allow transgender people to legally change their sex, and provides free hormone therapy.
1975 - The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made it illegal to discriminate on the ground of sex in employment, education, and the provision of housing, goods, facilities and services.
1980s/1990s – The pressure group Press for Change campaigned in support for transgender and transsexual people to be allowed to marry, and helped take several cases to the ECHR .
1986 - In Rees v. the United Kingdom ECHR (17 October 1986) a British trans man asked the government to amend his birth certificate to allow him to marry a woman. Rees’ representatives argued unsuccessfully that English law violated the European Convention on Human Rights Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 12 (right to marry) in its treatment of transgender people.
1996 - The landmark case P v S and Cornwall County Council C-13/94 ECR I-2413 in the European Court of Justice found that the plaintiff, a trans woman who was dismissed from her post after informing her employers that she was undergoing gender reassignment, had been unlawfully dismissed because, ‘to dismiss a person on the ground that he or she intends to undergo, or has undergone, gender reassignment, is to treat him or her unfavourably by comparison with persons of the sex to which he or she was deemed to belong before that operation.’ It was the first piece of case law anywhere in the world, which prevents discrimination in employment or vocational education because someone is transsexual
1999 - The courts established the right for people to access gender reassignment treatments on the NHS in the High Court case North West Lancashire Health Authority v A, D and G. In it, the North West Lancashire Health Authority did not fund gender reassignment surgery for three transgender women. After a judicial review, the High Court ruled that the health authority had misunderstood the nature of transsexual patients, that the health authority did not accurately assess the need for surgery for the wellbeing of the individual patients, and that the blanket ban given by the authority on gender reassignment surgery was "unlawful and irrational". The judgement was the first time that transgender surgical operations had been tested in court in the UK and was a landmark in the struggle for legal recognition of transgender rights in the UK. The ruling meant that it was illegal for any health authority in England or Wales to put a blanket ban on surgery relating to transgender people.
1999 - The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999 extended the existing Sex Discrimination Act 1975, making it illegal to discriminate against any person on the grounds of gender reassignment, but only in the areas of employment and vocational training. This included the right of trans people to serve in the Armed Forces.
2002 – The ECHR ruled on 11 July 2002, in Goodwin & I v United Kingdom [2002] 2 FCR 577, that a trans person's inability to change the sex on their birth certificate was a breach of their rights under Article 8 and Article 12 of the ECHR.
2003 – New provisions for enhanced sentencing where it is proved that an offence was aggravated by hostility (in Scotland, ‘malice and ill-will’) related to transgender identity - Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003; s74 Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, asp 7, s. 74; and Criminal Justice (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004/1991 (NI 15), Art. 2.
2004 - In response to its obligation arising from the Goodwin test case, the UK Parliament passed the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which effectively granted full legal recognition for transgender people in the UK. As from 4 April 2005 the Act gives transsexual people legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender (male or female) allowing them to acquire a new birth certificate, affording them full recognition of their acquired sex in law for all purposes, including marriage. Transgender people require to present evidence to a Gender Recognition Panel which considers their case and issues a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). If the person's birth or adoption was registered in the United Kingdom, they may also be issued a new birth certificate after their details have been entered onto the Gender Recognition Register.
2006 - In the case of Grant v United Kingdom ECHR 14 September 2011, the ECHR held that denying a state pension at age 60 from a male-to-female trans person was a breach of the right to respect for private life. It is now UK Government policy that transgender women may be entitled to backdated State Pension if all they were born between 31 October 1953 and 6 November 1953; they had lived in their acquired gender for at least 2 years by 31 October 2018; and they have had gender reassignment surgery.
2006 - The Equality Act 2006 introduced the Gender Equality Duty in Scotland, which made public bodies obliged to take seriously the threat of harassment or discrimination against transsexual people in various situations.
2008 - The Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulations extended existing regulation to outlaw discrimination when providing goods or services to transsexual people.
2010 - The Equality Act 2010 officially adds ‘gender reassignment’ as a ‘protected characteristic’, stating: ‘A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.’ This law provides protection for transgender people at work, in education, as a consumer, when using public services, when buying or renting property, or as a member or guest of a private club or association. The Act prohibits discrimination in the provision of separate and single-sex services but includes an exception that service providers can use in exceptional circumstances. In general, organisations that provide separate or single‑sex services for women and men, or provide different services to women and men, are required to treat trans people according to the gender role in which they present. The Act applies in England, Wales and Scotland.
2013 - With the 2013 introduction of same-sex marriage it became possible for a spouse to legally change their gender without requiring a divorce in the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland, where this became an option nearly a decade later on 13 January 2020
2020 - The Employment Tribunal case Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover Ltd 14 September 2020 ruled that non-binary gender and genderfluid identities fall under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment in the Equality Act 2010.
2020 - In a June 2020 report, the European Commission classified the legal procedures for gender recognition of 28 European countries into 5 categories based on the barriers to access. This placed the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the second from bottom category with ‘intrusive medical requirements’ that lags behind international human rights standards. In September 2020, the UK government published the results of the public consultation which showed wide support for all aspects of reform, including 64% in favour of removing the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 80% in favour of removing the requirement for a medical report. However, the UK government decided not to change the current law, which was described as ‘a missed opportunity’ by the EHRC.
2022 - In March 2022, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was formally introduced in the Scottish Parliament. If enacted, this bill would have amended the Gender Recognition Act and changed the process of applying for a GRC. Under the changes, applicants would no longer have needed to prove having lived for two years in their acquired gender and would no longer have had to obtain a gender dysphoria diagnosis. Instead, they would have been required to make a statutory declaration that they intend to remain permanently in their acquired gender. In addition, applications would have been handled by the Registrar General for Scotland instead of a UK-wide gender recognition panel. The bill passed by a vote of 86–39 within the Scottish Parliament on stage three in December 2022. The UK Government has ruled out implementing similar changes in England and Wales. On 17 January 2023, the UK Government used Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to prevent the bill from being proposed for royal assent, the first such time Section 35 had been used.