Talk:Deed of change of name

Deed polls are free of charge
I notice that User:Officialdps has been busy removing information that would help one change one name's by deed poll without charge. The paragraph headed 'Misconception' probably explains their motive. Addedentry (talk) 13:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

old Talk
That's not Elton John's 'deed of change of name' - that's a form for notifying a change of a company director!

In view of this information, I have removed the image to ensure clarity- spikeguy

Sex/gender
Despite some people's usage in recent years, "sex" and "gender" are not synonymous and gender does not mean sex. If it did, there would be no basis for Lucy-Marie to repeatedly change sex in the article to gender; if either were correct it would be appropriate to leave it as sex. But, her rationale in her latest edit is itself a condemnation of her own edit. It says (and I quote her) "gender is defined as 2. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture". Fine, no argument with that. But, and it's a big but, 1 she has not shown that sex is not the right word to use and 2 this dictionary definition doesn't say what she thinks it says. Read it carefully: it talks about sexual "identity" and how it relates to "society or culture". The article, though, is referring to someone's biological sex (and note that Lucy's definition says 'sexual' identity as well).

To quote from the most authoritative source, the Oxford English Dictionary:
 * "sex, n.1 1. a. Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and many other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions; (hence) the members of these categories viewed as a group; the males or females of a particular species, esp. the human race, considered collectively."
 * "2. Quality in respect of being male or female, or an instance of this; the state or fact of belonging to a particular sex; possession or membership of a sex."

The OED goes in, in a small note, to remark that "Since the 1960s increasingly replaced by gender (see GENDER n. 3b) when the referent is human, perhaps originally as a euphemism...... The word sex tends now to refer to biological differences, while gender often refers to cultural or social ones. " In other words, "gender" is not correct, but is 'increasingly' used as a euphemism (and I would add, a personal view, by people who are afraid to say 'sex').

Incidentally, the OED gives a definition of 'gender as "Kind, sort, class; also, genus as opposed to species" and goes on to give the definition alluded to by another editor:
 * "Each of the three (or in some languages two) grammatical ‘kinds’, corresponding more or less to distinctions of sex (and absence of sex) in the objects denoted, into which substantives are discriminated according to the nature of the modification they require in words syntactically associated with them; the property (in a n.) of belonging to, or (in other parts of speech) of having the form appropriate to concord with, a specified one of these kinds. Also, the distinction of words into ‘genders’, as a principle of grammatical classification." In other words, in French they have la and le; in German der, die and das.

The OED adds, as a note, "In mod. (esp. feminist) use, a euphemism for the sex of a human being, often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes."

Wikipedia is not in the business of using euphemisms. Sex is correct in this context, especially as we are referring to the biological distinctions and not the social and cultural distinctions. (Note: see also Sex Discrimination Act 1975 ("A person discriminates against a woman in any circumstances relevant for the purposes of any provision of this Act if (a) on the ground of her sex he treats her less favourably than he treats or would treat a man", Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 ("unlawful to discriminate against an individual on the grounds of his or her sex") etc etc etc.) Emeraude (talk) 21:06, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Just look at your birth certificate, your driver's license, your passport. Does it say "Gender" or "Sex"?  (Your passport should have it in French as well: "Sexe", not "Genre".)  -- Zsero (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like to ask why the condition is refered to as Gender Dysphoria and the UK passed the Gender Recognition Act. which both relate to going form either male to female or female to male. Also the whole topic is referred to as Gender identity disorder.--Lucy-marie (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Good questions. Gender dysphoria or, more correctly, gender identity disorder describes persons who 'experience significant.... discontent with the biological sex they were born with' (to quote Wikipedia). Note the distinction between biology and perceived identity. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is "An Act to make provision for and in connection with change of gender" and as such is, again, concerned with the question of social identity. You might argue that you are born with a sex and live with a gender; certainly there have been questions about whether someone who has a 'sex change' can be legally regarded as being of the opposite sex to that on their birth certificate, hence this Act. It is, unfortunately, becoming more and more common for people to use 'gender' when they really mean 'sex', even in Parliament! To reiterate, sex is the word that distinguishes animals as biologically male or female; gender distinguishes linguistic differences (e.g. nouns, adjectives etc in French, German, Italian etc but not, generally, in English); gender is also used, though incorrectly, to refer to a person's social identity. Emeraude (talk) 14:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Correction 1 - As of 2013, "Gender Identity Disorder" is obsolete. The APA has replaced it in the new DSM with "Gender Dysphoria."  Psychiatry is not practised in national vacuums but the terminology is normally adopted somewhat uniformly around the world.  But laws are rarely changed after the fact merely because the medical profession has changed a term or two.
 * Correction 2 - Sex is the collection of physical characteristics by which animals and plants are identified as male, female or intersex (animals)/bisexual (plants). Whether one is male or female as a matter of law depends upon both psychological and biological factors, including genetics (sex chromosomes) and phenotype.
 * To answer your initial question: Sex is a physical characteristic; gender is a psychological characteristic and social construction (macro- or micro-cosmic).  Medical ethics forbids major surgery for its own sake but there must be an established and acceptable medical reason to perform an operation.  Physical reasons to change characteristic sex are rare - e.g. the case of David Reimer, whose penis was destroyed in a botched circumcision so he was surgically reconstructed as a girl.  For the most part, there must be a psychological reason to perform sex reassignment surgery; that is why the diagnosis is gender dysphoria as opposed to sex dysphoria.  The person is psychologically uncomfortable with her/his body to such a degree that surgical intervention to change the physical characteristic is justified.

2601:645:C300:1648:D8F:ED82:61E3:DF5C (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100404010909/http://www.opsi.gov.uk:80/SI/si1994/Uksi_19940604_en_1.htm to http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1994/Uksi_19940604_en_1.htm

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 * Modification confirmed, but better link given in article to the actual SI. Emeraude (talk) 10:39, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

British government guidance
See the link below. Moonraker (talk) 05:30, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Change your name by deed poll, gov.uk