MB v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2014] EWCA Civ 1112, [2014] All ER (D) 10 (Aug)
The appellant was a male-to-female transsexual. In 1974, while she was still a man, she married a woman with whom she still lived. The appellant had not applied for a gender recognition certificate, as she did not wish to have her marriage annulled, in accordance with s 4(2) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (the 2004 Act). Accordingly, so far as the law was concerned, she remained a man. In May 2008, the appellant became 60 and applied for a state pension on the ground that she had reached what was then the pensionable age for a woman. The application was refused on the basis that she was a man and was, accordingly, not entitled to a pension until the age of 65.
The Court of Appeal held that the case of Hämäläinen v Finland [2014] ECHR 37359/09 provided that it was not disproportionate to require, as a precondition to legal recognition of an acquired gender, that the applicant’s marriage be converted into a registered partnership, as that
