The Gender Recognition Act was brought in in 2004 because the UK
lost a court case at the ECHR in 2002.*The court said:
"In the twenty first century the right of transsexuals to personal development and to physical and moral security in the full sense enjoyed by others in society cannot be regarded as a matter of controversy requiring the lapse of time to cast clearer light on the issues involved. In short, the unsatisfactory situation in which post-operative transsexuals live in an intermediate zone as not quite one gender or the other is no longer sustainable."
This is under
article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to a private life.
Placing "trans women" in a generally** different category than "women" is definitely putting them in an intermediate zone. And expecting them to make their assigned gender public is definitely taking the "private" out of "private life".
The UK is still a signatory to the convention. Cases can still be taken to its court. Leaving it would mean a *major* falling out with the EU. I suspect that if the UK tries to nudge things far at all that they will find the court takes a dim view.
*Fought, and lost, by Labour. Because they have never been onside in this area.
**It is possible to carve out exceptions in the current system. But they have to be justified on a case by case basis. A general finding that trans people are not of their legal gender is almost certainly not that.
