Partial Victory in Ireland for Transgender Recognition

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Ireland's minister for social protection has announced that the government will publish legislation in the next year to provide for the legal recognition of "acquired gender" of transgender people. Joan Burton is taking the action after the successful legal action taken by Dr. Lydia Foy, who has just won a case in the Irish High Court, after a 14-year battle, seeking legal recognition as a transgender person for a new birth certificate. Ultimately, the decision was based on a declaration that absence of legal recognition for transgender people in Ireland contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.

What will unfold in Ireland is only a partial victory, though, establishing a bureaucratic obstacle to full gender rights. An independent three-member gender recognition panel, made up of a medical and a legal specialist, and chaired by an independent person from outside these disciplines, will be set up to examine applications from people seeking recognition of their acquired gender. People who meet certain criteria will then be issued a gender recognition certificate, which would have the effect of legally recognizing their "acquired gender" and entitle them to a new birth certificate (with the original remaining on file). They would will then be entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex to their acquired gender or enter into a civil partnership with a person of the same gender.

The restrictive criteria include having lived in the "acquired gender" for at least two years; a formal medical diagnosis of the "condition" or having had gender reassignment surgery; being over age 18; and not in a marriage or or civil partnership. (The latter criterion, which could require some divorces to qualify, exists to avoid a constitutional challenge to the law as permitting same-sex marriage, barred under the Irish constitution. it has been criticized for forcing married applicant to have to choose between their life partners and gender recognition.)

A new documentary about Lydia Foy tells her story. Yesterday's edition of IrishCentral.com reported:

When Lydia Foy was born in 1947, her birth was registered as male, but from an early age she knew that all was not right: "I knew I wasn?t to be allowed be myself and I couldn?t tell anyone basically," she reflected in a RTE documentary.

Attending boarding school, university and qualifying as a dentist, for over four decades she struggled to come to terms with her transgender syndrome.

"I made a powerful effort to try and conform for a good while," Foy said.

After a long personal battle, Foy finally travelled to London for sex reassignment surgery in 1992. She later went on to fight for legal recognition to live as a woman in Ireland. In June 2010 she won a landmark High Court Ruling, when it was established that Irish transgender rights laws was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In a new RTE documentary "My Name is Lydia Foy", the 64-year-old talks about the many difficulties she faced as a person with transgender syndrome.

"I would have been battered, I would be ridiculed and bashed and called stupid," Foy said of her childhood, during the RTE radio documentary.

"It was a very strict society back then, so a lot of it was kept internally.

"I couldn?t have said, look it I would like a dress, not in a million years.

"You couldn?t discuss anything like that with your parents really, even though they were very, very good to us all.

"You cannot sort of blame them as such, it was just society.

"They used to try and say 'oh you have a complex' like you didn?t have a father figure.

"I did have a father figure and he was a real man?s man, he loves shooting and the rest of it," she reflected. ...

Despite winning her landmark case last year, Dr Foy is still waiting for her birth certificate to be rectified.

"Calling somebody transsexual is just a marginalizing term," Foy said during the documentary.

"There shouldn?t be any labels attached after treatment, you have aligned yourself as best you can.

"The correct term is that my name is Lydia Foy, end of story. I no longer need a label thank you very much," Foy concludes.