Legalise Nonbinary UK - Help Cover Ryan’s Legal Costs

Hi, I’m Ryan!

I’m a nonbinary person living in the United Kingdom. Throughout my life, I’ve always felt somewhere in between female and male. Now, thanks to modern medicine, my body has become androgynous to match. What’s frustrating is that the British government insists that, legally speaking, I’m a gender I long ago stopped pretending to be.

Discussions about offering legal gender recognition to nonbinary people living in the UK began in 2018. There are over 100,000 of us, but the government has repeatedly refused, claiming it would be “too complicated”. They say they would have to change many laws and IT systems all at once. This is nonsense, and I’m trying to prove it in court.

I’m originally from America, and my documents from there, including my birth certificate and passport, all say I’m nonbinary. America and other countries have begun offering legal recognition of nonbinary gender, updating things in a piecemeal fashion, without any significant problems. The British government has been unable to provide a coherent explanation of why it would be any different here. Even if they could... my lawyers contend that nonbinary gender can already be legally recognised here without changing anything.

In April of 2022, I was the first person to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) as nonbinary under the UK’s Gender Recognition Act (GRA). My application was granted 27 July 2022 based on my corrected birth certificate. The law is quite clear — once an application is granted, a GRC listing the person’s “acquired gender” must be issued. In my case, that is the gender I acquired under US law as stated on my birth certificate — “nonbinary”. Despite this, the government refused to issue my GRC.

I sued.

Since then, my case has begun working its way through the courts. I’m currently waiting for it to be heard in the UK Court of Appeal. The problem is, lawyers cost money, and this incredibly complicated case has required extensive research and preparation.

So far, my costs in the case have been nearly £180,000. I've been able to raise over £85,000 on CrowdJustice, but I've had to pay the rest myself, £93,980.42 so far. Although I’m still accepting donations on CrowdJustice, that money can't be used to reimburse me for what I’ve already paid.

Please help offset the immense costs I’m shouldering in bringing this important issue to court.