The Civil Partnership Act and the Gender Recognition Act at 20

In February, City celebrated LGBTQ+ History Month, with this year also marking the twentieth anniversary of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA) and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA).

Representing two of the most consequential family law reforms since the turn of the 21^st century, the CPA and GRA redefined the status of same-sex couples and trans adults.

On Thursday 22 February, Senior Lecturer at The City Law School, Dr Alexander Maine, and colleagues, Dr Peter Dunne, University of Bristol and Dr Flora Renz, University of Kent, organised a one-day in-person and online conference at the School. Here, both the CPA and GRA were analysed in their wider legal, historical and social contexts and the inter-relationship and potential inter-dependence of these statutes were explored across two panel, and then a final roundtable, discussion.

Baroness Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive of Stonewall between 2014 and 2019, provided the opening Keynote Address at the event. She said in part:

I think it’s worth saying, before I get into the last twenty years, that anybody who sits here will have a different story to tell, and that we think these things are quite objective and that there are a series of fact-based, time lined events. But people will have experienced it in different ways, and people are mysteries, right? I think what I am increasingly understanding is that how people are feeling about something does affect whether things progress in certain places, and that it’s very easy to think of what I’m sharing today as cold facts. I think what I’m sharing is my perception of certainly the last twenty years.