The Decision in Corbett v Corbett

In Corbett v Corbett Ormrod J rejected the idea that a surgical procedure could change a person’s sex with respect to marriage. Ashley was not, in the law’s eyes, a woman for the purpose of marriage. Marriage was a heterosexual union of man and woman, and no artificially created body could fulfill the requirements. If the chromosomes, gonads, external genitalia were aligned at birth, then psychological sex (gender) was deemed irrelevant. Whereas gender identity might be acceptable for other domains of law, marriage was the domain of sexual identity. The medical experts were divided, and the judge rejected the argument that Ashley should be seen as intersex and her psychological gender recognized. The judge stipulated how the medical facts could be analyzed so as to yield a legal category, with an apparently biomedical decision actually masking common sense reasoning (the category true sex) and ordinary language assumptions. While the judge disclaimed any intention to define legal sex at large, i.e. for all legal purposes, the judgment in effect brought it into being.