The former Martin Packer and Linda Packer remarried in a civil ceremony to preserve the tax and pension rights they enjoyed as a married couple.
Parker Martin, now known as Emma Martin. Emma Martin, who had a sex change, remarried his wife of 30 years after they tied the knot as man and wife, media reported Sunday. (Photo: news.cn/Agencies)The couple from Little Downham, near Ely in Cambridgeshire, first married in 1977 and never had children.
The now 60-year-old IT consultant has had a problem with his gender since he was four. In 1998, he told his wife he wanted to change his sex.
Subsequently, around 20,000 pounds of treatments including electrolysis and hormone therapy were followed by gender reassignment surgery.
Under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, marriages in which one spouse has a sex change are not permitted to continue.
Consequently, they annulled their marriage so Emma would be legally recognized as a woman, but lost the same tax rights as married couples or those in civil partnerships.
Emma Martin, who had a sex change, remarried his wife of 30 years after they tied the knot as man and wife, media reported Sunday. (Photo: news.cn/Agencies)It left the pair facing large inheritance tax bills should one of them die and it also caused problems with life insurance and pensions rights.
So the "soulmates and best friends" decided to get remarried.
Calling Linda her soulmate, Emma explained "the simplest thing would have been if we could have had a transfer from a marriage to a civil partnership but that wasn't possible and it was such a farce to get all the paperwork sorted out.
The couple spoke out one year after their remarriage after Joyce and Sybil Burden, aged 90 and 82, lost their inheritance tax battle in the European Court of Human Rights.
The two sisters have lived together in Wiltshire all their lives and tried to get the same tax rights as married couples and civil partners.
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