The distinction between sex and gender has become even more complex, with Britain’s first transgendered “male mother” believed to have given birth. The person is thought to have had the baby last year, while living as a man. Medical experts said that if the womb is not removed during sex-change surgery, a woman who becomes a man is still capable of bearing a child.

Details were released by Joanna Darrell, of the Beaumont Society, which supports those who seek gender reassignment surgery. She said the person, in “his” thirties, asked about the possibility of having children after the operation. He was sent to another organisation but contacted the Beaumont Society to thank them for their help and tell them “he” had had a baby.

Trevor Stammers, a lecturer in bioethics at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham, told the Sunday Times that the child’s “bizarre beginning” would stay with it for the remainder of its life. “You are hardly going to end up with a baby that is going to have a happy, productive and optimal childhood,” he said.

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: “Whether we like it or not, human biology is for a male and female to produce a child and they are then called Mummy and Daddy. If there is one thing that is uniformly agreed about children, it is that they like conformity, they like to be exactly the same as everybody else.” ~ Daily Mail, Feb 12