Case of Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)
- Date
- 1970
- Title
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Case of Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)
- Description
- The Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ahley) divorce case establishes a precedent that a person’s sex is fixed at birth. Justice Ormrod J holds that the purported marriage between Mr Corbett and April Ashley, a fully post-operative male-to-female ‘transsexual’ person is void, and grants Mr Corbett a decree of nullity of marriage. Ormrod J holds that for the purpose of marriage a person’s ‘true sex’ is fixed at birth, and a male-to-female transsexual person cannot ‘reproduce a person who is naturally capable of performing the essential role of a woman in marriage’.
- References
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Stephen Gilmore, ‘England and Wales’ in Jens M. Scherpe (ed), The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons (Intersentia 2015) 185-186
- Note
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Further Reading:
Stephen Gilmore., ‘Corbett v Corbett: Once a Man, Always a Man?’ In Stephen Gilmore, Jonathan Herring, and Rebecca Probert (ed.s.), Landmark Cases in Family Law (Bloomsbury 2016), 47–72