The Gender Recognition Act 2004 has been hailed as radical and ground-breaking legislation and it can clearly be considered to be a successful piece of legislation because between coming into force on 4 April 2005 and the third quarter of financial year 2013/14 it provided full legal recognition of one’s gender identity to 3,664 individuals and interim recognition to 173 individuals; only 180 applications had been refused and 93 applications have been withdrawn. So clearly the law is doing what it was intended to do. However the legislation is not without its problems and it is far from perfect. This thesis argues that the UK Government, when enacting the legislation, adopted the medical model of transsexualism as understood within medicine in 2003/04 which resulted in the legislation enacting strong gatekeeper roles for medical professionals and the Gender Recognition Panel which means that it is difficult for one to obtain legal recognition of one’s gender identity under UK law. The thesis proposes that an alternative model of legal recognition based on gender self-declaration is possible and would achieve the same outcome but with less difficulties for the individual.