Ananova:

A High Court judge says he is "sympathetic" towards a father who wants his marriage to a man declared valid.

The father went through a sex-change operation in 1981 and as Elizabeth married Michael Bellinger at Southwark Register Office in south London in the same year.

Mrs Bellinger has now petitioned the High Court, saying the couple have "lived and cohabited together happily" since the marriage which she wants declared legal.

The couple, who are middle-aged, are challenging established UK law that allows marriage between a couple only when their birth certificates show they are of opposite sexes.

Their plea is being challenged by the Attorney General who says that although they went through a marriage ceremony in front of a registrar, because Elizabeth has never been a female within the meaning of the Matrimonial Causes Act, it was not lawful.

Ashley Bayston, representing Elizabeth, described her client as "a male to female post-operative transsexual" who had always considered herself to be female.

Her father registered her as a male but she displayed feminine behaviour and was dressed as a girl by her mother, then forced to act as a boy when she went to school.

Ms Bayston said Elizabeth was then "forced into marriage" with a woman by church elders and there was a sexual relationship and children were born.

She said her client eventually "broke free" and lived as a woman from 1971, beginning treatment at Charing Cross Hospital which eventually led to surgery.