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Lesbian partners to be named on birth certificates
Lesbian couples having children through fertility treatment granted same birth certificate rights as heterosexual couples
Lesbian couples who have children through fertility treatment can now register both their names on the birth certificate, following a change in the law.
The change, which applies to couples in England and Wales beginning fertility treatment on or after 6 April 2009, confers legal parenthood on a biological mother's female partner for the first time.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 granted lesbian couples equal rights as parents. The new regulations on the registration of births and deaths came into force today, although no child covered by the change will have been born yet.
Lord Brett, the Home Office minister, said: "This positive change means that, for the first time, female couples who have a child using fertility treatment have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts to be shown as parents in the birth registration. It is vital that we affordequality wherever we can in society, especially as family circumstances continue to change. This is an important step forward in that process."
The Home Office said birth certificates would be made available with two "parent" sections, rather than mother and father.
Ruth Hunt, the head of policy and research of the lesbian, gay and bisexual group Stonewall, said life for lesbian families would become fairer and easier.
"As the law improves to provide further equality, knowing your new rights will help people make full use of the services they're entitled to," she said. "And, if discrimination occurs, the same knowledge can help them demand fair treatment. Now lesbian couples in the UK who make a considered decision to start a loving family will finally be afforded equal access to services they help fund as taxpayers."
Critics said the change in the law was a blow against the traditional family model.
"If we want to build a stable society, a mother and father and children works as the best model," the Conservative MP Nadine Dorries told the BBC. "We should be striving towards repairing and reinforcing marriage. I think this move sends out the exact opposite message."
Geraldine Smith, a Labour MP, agreed: "To have a birth certificate with two mothers and no father is just madness."
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said 728 lesbians underwent IVF treatment between 1999 and 2006.
Transsexual rape bid convict sent to women's prison
Sex swap court win
A transsexual killer, who also tried to rape a woman, yesterday won a battle to be moved to an all-female jail.
The 27-year-old - who was born a man - had challenged Justice Secretary Jack Straw's refusal for a transfer from a male prison.
She has already had her womanhood recognised by law after getting permanent face and leg hair removal and hormone therapy to develop breasts.
Now, the High Court has overruled the Justice Department - saying her human rights are being violated.
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The life prisoner, who cannot be named, will be moved to be with female inmates within weeks where she plans to fulfil her dream of full sex swap surgery. Her barrister Phillipa Kaufman argued: "There is absolutely no security reason why she should be kept where she is.
"If she remains in the male estate, she is looking at the bleakest future."
London's High Court heard her crimes - she strangled her boyfriend and tried to rape a female shop assistant - were linked to her frustration at being trapped in a man's body.
Miss Kaufman argued if she had a full sex swap - which doctors refuse while she is in a men's jail - she may start getting better. Male prisoners had apparently refused to accept her.
But the Justice Department had argued that she would be no more likely to be accepted by female inmates and would probably have to spend long periods in segregation.
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