Why did the High Court strip a transgender father of legal parenthood?

A concerning recent High Court decision has found that a transgender father, whose wife conceived through donor insemination, is not his child's legal parent because he has a gender recognition certificate (GRC). The case, FZ v MZ (2025), has profound significance for transgender parents, UK fertility clinics and the wider law.

What happened in this case?

A transgender man with a GRC (so legally male) was married to a woman, who gave birth to two children conceived at home with donor sperm. The older child was conceived pre-marriage, so the father was unsurprisingly not a legal parent, but the younger child was conceived during the marriage; a situation in which the wife's spouse would normally be the other legal parent. Yet the High Court ruled that, because the father had a GRC, he had no legal connection with his child.

How did the court come to this conclusion?

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (HFE Act) gives legal parenthood to couples who conceive through donor conception, irrespective of biology. A married woman's consenting spouse is, under the rules, a legal parent: if a man, he is the legal 'father' (enshrined in UK legislation since 1987) and if a woman, she is a female legal 'parent' (following the HFE Act 2008 which sought to equalise the law for same-sex couples). The distinction in parental title is not legally significant – both have identical legal status, rights and responsibilities.

In this case, Mrs Justice Lieven ruled that a transgender father with a GRC could tick neither box. The rationale is technical. He could not be the legal 'father' because section 12 of the Gender Recognition Act says his GRC had no effect on parenthood (this was not entirely surprising following the judgment in the McConnell case, in which a transgender man with a GRC who gave birth was ruled to be his child's 'mother' – see BioNews 1017 and 1073). However, he was also not his child's female legal 'parent', since his GRC was recognised for the purposes of his marriage: his wife – legally married to a man – did not qualify as 'a party to a marriage with another woman'.

The mind-bending conclusion – that he was not recognised as a man for the purposes of the legal parenthood provisions for men, but was excluded from the legal parenthood provisions for women because he was recognised as a man – meant he was double-disqualified. His GRC precluded him from having any legal connection with a child who would, in any other circumstances, have been his legal child.

Why is the case significant?

The case breaks a 20-year history of High Court judges making the HFE Act work to give children secure legal parentage. We have casebooks full of judgments in which the court has creatively secured the status of parents who don't quite qualify for parental orders after surrogacy, and employed legal gymnastics to enable parents through sperm donation who did not sign the right clinic consent forms to be deemed legal parents.

As the late great Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division, said: 'What, after all, to any child, to any parent, never mind to future generations and indeed to society at large, can be more important, emotionally, psychologically, socially and legally, than the answer to the question: Who is my parent? Is this my child?'

This is a proud tradition, and one which is essential to making the law a living instrument which can safeguard children born into increasingly diverse family structures. It is also mandated by Parliament, with the court having an express duty under the Human Rights Act 1998 to read the law in accordance with human rights principles, and to make the lifelong welfare of the child its paramount consideration.

How does this fit with wider gender recognition law?

GRCs were created by the Gender Recognition Act, passed in 2004 to enable transgender people to live fully in their identifying gender, the European Court of Human Rights having ruled it unlawful to leave them in 'an intermediate zone as not quite one gender or the other'.

Recent court judgments, including the Court of Appeal judgment in the McConnell case and the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland, have diminished the legal protections afforded by GRCs, but this case goes even further, making GRCs not just ineffective but detrimental. Having a GRC, it seems, now entirely disqualifies you from being a legal parent.

So where does this leave us in practice?

Until now, UK law has maintained a relatively simple principle that married couples conceiving through donor conception (whether at a clinic or at home) are both legal parents. Now, transgender parents with a GRC are excluded. This has profound implications for licensed fertility clinics, which have a legal duty to provide information to patients about legal parenthood. Clinic protocols and HFEA consent forms will need re-writing to make clear that married transgender parents do not qualify.

It is not clear what the ruling means for unmarried couples, or whether married transgender parents could use the legal parenthood forms for unmarried couples if they are conceiving at a clinic. This relies on a different part of the law to establish legal parenthood, and the judgment raises an unresolved question about whether transgender parents can use the legal parenthood forms to become legal parents in their legal gender (doubtful), their birth gender (hopefully, at least) or not at all (possibly).

Transgender parents conceiving children must navigate this complexity. If they are not their child's legal parent they will need to make an intrusive and lengthy step-parent adoption application, and take other steps to safeguard their families. They must question whether applying for a GRC, the very thing designed to protect them, is now prejudicial if they want to have a family.

What is the answer?

This is just a first instance decision, so it may be overturned on appeal. Failing that, the only solution is legislative change. The HFE Act was designed to protect children conceived through donor conception, and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was designed to ensure that transgender people were not treated as neither one gender nor another.

On both fronts, the law has spectacularly failed, and Parliament needs to take action.

Transgender people exist, they have children, and their children have the right – just like all others – to have their parentage securely recognised by the law.