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Titles

Common titles

These are some of the most commonly used titles in the UK:

  • Ms: A title commonly used by women.
  • Mr: A title commonly used by men.
  • Mx: A title that can be used by anyone.
  • (none): Some people prefer not to use a title.
  • Mrs: A title used by some married women.
  • Miss: A title used by some unmarried women.

Some people use other titles: these may be titles denoting an academic award or medical qualification (such as Dr or Professor), their job within government or a religion, or an honorary title. More rarely, people use their own invented title, but many people and organisations do not respect this choice.

Changing your title

As titles are often associated with particular genders, you may wish to change your title. You are free to change your title as you wish without asking anyone for permission, provided you are not doing in a way which could be seen as fraudulent, such as implying that you have an academic qualification that you do not. You do not need to have signed a Deed Poll or have obtained a gender recognition certificate (GRC) to change your title 1, p.69.

You will need to tell people that you have changed your title before they will start to use it. You can find information about how to do this on our Telling Organisations page. Often people will notify organisations of a change of title at the same time as notifying them about about a change of name or change of gender, as these can usually all be changed at once.

Unfortunately, some organisations restrict what titles they will refer to you by. In particular, some NHS systems may require that you have updated your gender marker to be ‘M’ to use the title ‘Mr’, and others may required your gender marker to be ‘F’ to use the titles ‘Ms’, ‘Mrs’, or ‘Miss’. You can read about how to update your gender marker on the Updating NHS records page.

Some will only allow you to choose a title from a short list, and others require a title to always be provided (rather than allowing you to not use a title). In this situation, it is often useful to contact the organisation first to politely ask them to update their systems to allow more flexibility. You can find more information about which UK organisations allow which titles to be used by visiting dontgender.me.

References

  1. 1.
    Vincent, Ben (2018) Transgender Health, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Link

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