What GIRES does#
GIRES is a long-standing UK charity that works on research and education about trans and gender-diverse people. Most of its work today is with organisations: training, e-learning, policy responses and guidance for schools and the NHS. It still answers individuals and families who write to it, and its "Individual help" page describes requests from parents, partners, pupils and employees as well as trans people themselves.
Its most practical resource for a person looking for support is TranzWiki, a directory of non-commercial groups across the UK. You pick a region on a map, or UK-wide, and then filter by the kind of support you want. Groups that want to be listed, or to correct their details, write to GIRES.
Contacting a small team#
The contact page has a form with a subject list, including health and medical support. GIRES says it is a small charity whose staff work part-time, mainly Tuesday to Friday, so replies are not instant. For a conversation the same day, a helpline run by another charity will be quicker; this handbook's list of trans and non-binary charities has several.
The documents page, and its date#
Documents to be changed upon gender transition was published on 26 August 2014. It makes a point people often miss: the paperwork can take as much time and effort as anything medical, because every organisation has its own process. Its advice runs in this order:
- Change your name formally first. It names the two routes it sees most: a statutory declaration, made before a magistrate or solicitor for a small fee, and a deed poll. Both, it says, are accepted for a passport and a driving licence.
- Then work through a long list. Driving licence, passport, qualifications, professional bodies, GP and other health records, tax and National Insurance, work records, pensions and insurance, the benefits office, banks, mortgage and credit cards, utilities, council tax, the electoral roll, clubs, even domain registrations.
- Credit reports. Because a report usually links your old and new names, the agencies offer a way to move old entries into your new name and remove the link, or to keep it. GIRES notes that both choices have advantages, that you need not wait for a Gender Recognition Certificate, and that the electoral roll should be updated first.
Reading it in 2026#
The list still works as a checklist, but some names and steps have moved on since 2014:
- Criminal record checks are now run by the Disclosure and Barring Service, which has a confidential route for previous names. Our DBS guide explains it, with the routes in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- Passports. The page links a doctor's letter to the passport. HM Passport Office treats a new name and a new gender marker as separate requests; changing the gender marker on a passport sets out what each needs.
- Credit agencies. The page names two agencies; there are three. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion covers how each updates a name.
- Your name and your gender are separate steps. A deed poll changes your name, while a birth certificate changes only with a Gender Recognition Certificate, as the page says. Deed poll or Gender Recognition Certificate? compares the two.
For the name itself, GOV.UK lets anyone of 16 or over write their own deed poll, signed before two adult witnesses, with enrolment optional. Can I get a deed poll for free? explains the free routes.
This page describes what GIRES publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. GIRES has not reviewed it, and a listing here is not a recommendation of this handbook or of any deed poll service by GIRES.
