Archbishop of Canterbury rules pair’s 23-year marriage ‘invalid’ over birth certificate error
A British woman whose birth certificate incorrectly said she was male says the Archbishop of Canterbury intervened to void her marriage.
Kim Walmsley, 49, had been married to husband Jack for over 23 years, and lived with him and their five children on Australia’s Gold Coast.
However, their marriage has now been declared invalid, after it was discovered that an error on the registrar’s copy of Kim’s birth certificate incorrectly identified her as male.
According to the General Registry Office, the pair’s marriage was technically an illegal same-sex marriage, even though Kim has always been female, and has biological children.
Kim told the Guardian: “It was only when someone asked if we were still legally married that we thought to question that.
“The archbishop of Canterbury wrote to tell us he could no longer recognise our marriage of 23 years.”
She told the Mirror: “In the eyes of the law we were technically two men marrying and that was against the law at the time.
“The whole thing is absolutely disgusting.
“I’ve lived nearly 40 years not realising I was actually registered as a boy and then all of a sudden my whole life fell apart.
“It means my marriage is a complete farce. We had a big white wedding in a church and spent a fortune and it was all for nothing.”
As Kim was unable to renew her visa because of the problem, the family have had to leave Australia, and are now living in Liverpool.
In a letter to David Cameron, her MP Bill Esterson asked: “Would it be possible for you as Prime Minister to use your discretion to allow ‘boy’ to be completely deleted from the original entry in the registry book and replaced with ‘girl’ being the correct sex?”
“This is a ludicrous case of a mistake which was made nearly half a century ago, which is still plaguing Kim and her family today.
“The fact that Kim is obviously a female is unquestionable. She has five biological children, but because her birth entry states that she is male, she is having these problems which are causing great distress to Kim and her whole family.”
