Introduction

By section 1 of the Civil Partnership Act, a civil partnership is, in essence, a legal relationship between two people of the same sex, and that being so, such a partnership cannot take place unless each of the proposed civil partners is of the same sex (see s.3(1)(a)). The issue of the gender of the prospective partners will for the most part be straightforward. However, the Act recognises the modifications in the law relating to gender change as set out in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and in different parts of the Civil Partnership Act provision is made to accommodate these changes. Rather than deal in each of the separate chapters with the modifications brought about by the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to, for example, the procedure to be adopted for registration where one of the prospective civil partners is a former spouse who has changed gender, or the effect of a change of gender on nullity proceedings, it was thought more sensible to devote a separate chapter to the interrelation between the two Acts. The practical advantage is that once the practitioner becomes aware that there may be an issue in relation to gender this discrete chapter will be a convenient starting point.