Birth certificates can't be changed??

[NImumconfused]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/19/baby-girl-registered-wrong-sex-mansfield-registration-office

How ridiculous is that? You can't get it changed if the registrar made a mistake, but you can if you decide you want to become the opposite sex?

When I married my second husband (basic civil wedding, 4 guests*) we left the registry office to go to Patisserie Valerie for posh cake and while eating said cake got out the certificate and noticed that my husband’s name was wrong - not just a spelling mistake either, a completely different first and middle name, think Richard John rather than Thomas Daniel!

Luckily we were still close by so he dashed back and they immediately corrected it and issued a new copy - it meant we didn’t get a handwritten in-ceremony certificate to keep, just a typed version, but no biggie and sorted on the spot with lots of apologies from the staff at the registry office.
Seems weird that they could correct a factually inaccurate mistake on a marriage certificate yet this little girl has a factually inaccurate M (or amended M) forever.

*we had a Humanist Celebrant/non legally binding ceremony with a party so the registry office was just the paperwork bit, hence just witnesses and their plus ones in attendance!

This exact issue happened to me yesterday. I went to register my 1 week old son’s birth and the registrar put female as his gender instead of male. The registrar had all the correct information from the hospital and NHS and despite me referring to the birth of my SON verbally multiple times put his gender as female because and I quote directly “I’ve only ever seen Skye as a girl’s name”. Similar to the article they are now refusing to reissue a new clean new birth certificate with the correct gender and doing the margin correction instead. Who is ever gonna read an asterix comment at the bottom of a birth certificate they will just look at what’s on the actual certificate!
As a FTM with a very traumatic birth with heaps of complications this has really messed me up. I’ve reached out to my MP and hoping they fix this. If any of you have any further advice or steps I can take further I’m all ears.

Firstly - congratulations on the birth of your baby. I hope his gorgeousness is helping you cope with all the problems you've encountered.

That's dreadful about the mistake.. I do hope your MP can help. If they can issue a new birth certificate to someone who claims to be the opposite sex then they can certainly issue one where the registrar has fucked up. Please consider putting in a formal complaint to the Local Authority about the registrar. This is their bread and butter, registering births etc and if they're incapable of doing this accurately then they need to be moved to another position where they can't do any damage.

That’s awful Olive - I hope you find a solution. Absolutely no reason why a child should be saddled with inaccurate documents for life due to a lapse in concentration by the registrar.

Makes you wonder how often it happens.

Coming back to this, I’m wondering if it would be possible/useful to try a Freedom of Information request to find out how many babies have a registrar-made mistake on their permanent record?

FWIW I always think of Skye as boys name due to the American swing dancer, Skye Humphries (widely considered to be one of the best male roots/vernacular jazz dancers in the world today due to his musicality, attention to detail, willingness to let his dance partners shine and ability to make it all look incredibly easy):

Choreographed dance with Remy

Improvised dance (to a live band!) with Frida:

I could watch dance videos all day! Love that