Now let us get this straight.

A woman who applied, under the Gender Recognition Act, 2004, to be publicly acknowledged as a man, has nevertheless conceived a child. He is now petitioning to be registered as the ‘father’ of the child. The grounds cited are the difficulty of explaining the complications of the situation to the child, and the emotional and relational problems which might ensue.

It is, it seems to me, not at all clear how lying to the child twice over – about both the nature of the present relationship and the abandonment of the child by the mother it will naturally assume to exist – can possibly be of help to anyone. Nor do I see how, in all conscience, the registrar can falsify the birth certificate. If the birth of a child is not sufficient proof that the ‘father’ was (at least at the time of the birth) a mother, what would be?

The complications arising from the anomalous relationship of parent and child in this case do not require further involvement by the State. The problem arises from the absurdity of the 2004 Act itself