Dr Lydia Foy, the transgender woman who won a landmark High Court
case for gender recognition in 2007, has issued new proceedings against
the State as she remains unable to get a birth certificate indicating
she is a woman.
Dr Foy, supported by the Free Legal Advice
Centres, served the plenary summons against the Minister for Social
Protection, Ireland and the Attorney General on the Chief State
Solicitor on Monday
“I think it’s beyond belief that the State
still hasn’t changed the law,” said Dr Foy at her home in Athy, Co
Kildare, yesterday.
“You’d imagine they’d have dived in to fix
this up. Not a huge number of people would be affected and it’s a matter
of human rights.”
The High Court ruled in October 2007 that Irish
law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights for
refusing to recognise the acquired gender of transgender people.
The
State moved to appeal to the Supreme Court but withdrew this in June
2010.
Since then successive Governments have promised to introduce
legislation to allow transgender people to get new birth certificates.
Gender identity
Dr
Foy was registered as Donal Mark Foy at birth. She married and had two
daughters, but struggled with her gender, attempting suicide and
spending time in psychiatric care.
She was diagnosed with gender
identity disorder by doctors in Britain.
She and her then wife separated
in 1991 and she underwent gender realignment surgery in Britain in
1992. She was to lose her job as a dentist as well as access to her
daughters following the surgery.
In March 1993 she applied for a
new birth certificate reflecting her female identity, was refused and
began legal proceedings in 1997.
Though the High Court initially ruled against her in 2002 it made its groundbreaking ruling in her favour five years later.
Ireland is now the only state in Europe still in breach of the Convention on Human Rights on the issue.
Minister
for Social Protection, Joan Burton, said on a number of occasions
legislation was a “priority”. Last September she promised its
publication “within weeks”.
A spokeswoman for the department said
the “formal opinion of the Attorney General was received . . . in
December 2012 and is currently under consideration”.
The continued
refusal by the State to recognise who she is is “very much a source of
distress,” says Dr Foy. “It’s a constant insult. I’ve been very alone,
very badly treated along the way.”
Recognition
Winning
the recognition that can only come with a birth certificate that
accurately reflects who she is has only become more important.
“Losing
my family and my job seemed the worst, most important issues in the
past. But I see everything flows from your identity. Being accepted for
who I am is the most important thing. I would like to see this wrong put
right as quickly and with as much dignity as possible.”