To mark 10 years since the Gender Recognition Act was passed in Ireland, we have dug into the depths of the GCN Archive to uncover how the magazine covered the struggle that led to the passage of the law. This article, from GCN Issue 312, marked the day when Dr. Lydia Foy received a European Citizen’s Award after her 20-year fight to have her birth certificate changed to reflect her gender identity.

It’s a freezing day in Brussels. Outside an entrance to the massive European Parliament buildings, a group of 20 of us gather, bundled up against the cold. We’re a mixed bunch, a couple of media pundits, some politicians, a number of Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) workers, some of the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI)
board and management, and a group of Foy family members. As we proceed through the Parliament’s slightly chaotic security checks, there’s a vaguely hysterical air about us. I get stopped after walking through the metal detector because I have sunglasses in my pocket, and general hilarity ensues.

We’re here to see Dr. Lydia Foy receive a European Citizen’s Award, in recognition of her 18-year legal battle to have her birth certificate reflect her gender identity, a fight that led to the introduction of some of the world’s most progressive gender recognition legislation in Ireland this year. Lydia is among 52 awardees, from all across Europe, who have been sequestered away, rehearsing the ceremony all morning. Taking our seats at the back of the hall (nearly every seat in the house is reserved for an MEP), we get glimpses of Lydia near the stage. We’re all beaming at each other, like parents at a school awards ceremony.

The ceremony is fast-paced. Awardees come to the stage and accept their certificates, pose for a photo, and exit. But when Lydia steps up, she has to pause amid the applause. She’s clearly a very popular winner. Back in 1997, when her legal battle challenging the refusal of the Registrar General to issue her with a new birth certificate began, D.r Lydia Foy was not so popular. Photographed outside the court, her life suddenly became nationwide news. The reaction was not favourable.

“People said I was looking for publicity for myself,” she says. “I was criticised for coming out of court with my head held high. My natural reaction would have been to bury my face in my hands coming out of court, not to have my privacy invaded, but if I did that I would have looked ashamed. I was not ashamed. I am proud of who I am.”

It’s this pride that underpinned Lydia’s tenacity as she fought against an adversarial system, in a country that had little understanding or empathy. Having lost her marriage and access to her children, suffered depression, and overcome the mammoth task of tranistioning, she never imagined she’d be dragging her life through the courts of Ireland and Europe, but despite her misgivings about her privacy, she gave the battle her all.

“I felt I was backed into a corner and could do nothing else,” she says. “I did not do it out of bravery or anything like that. It was a remarkably tough journey, considering the reactions of many in Ireland to people who were born transgender. I never thought it would be quite as bad, but I had no choice but to carry on.”

Lydia’s case reached the High Court in 2000, but the judgement was reserved for another two years, when Mr Justice Liam McKechnie rejected Lydia’s challenge, saying that she had been born male based on medical and scientific evidence, and so accordingly the registration of her birth could not be changed.

Just two days later, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg heard a similar case. Christine Goodwin, a British transgender woman, had claimed that the United Kingdom’s refusal to allow her to amend her birth certificate and to marry as a female violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court declared that the UK Government had violated Articles 8 and 12 of the Convention, and in response, Britain passed the Gender Recognition Act 2004, providing for legal recognition of transgender persons in their new or acquired gender, and for the issuing of new birth certificates reflecting that gender.

In 2005, Lydia’s case was sent back before the High Court by the Irish Supreme Court for further consideration. In the interim, Ireland had passed the European Convention on Human Rights Act, 2003 ot give greater effect to the European Convention on Human Rights in Irish law. Relying on this, Lydia made another application for a new birth certificate in November 2005 and when this was rejected, she issued new legal proceedings in the High Court in January 2006, referring to the Goodwin decision by the European Court of Human Rights.

On 19 October 2007, the court found Ireland in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and decided to issue the first declaration of incompatibility between Irish and European law. According to Justice Liam McKechnie, who heard the second case, provisions of Article 8 of the Convention protecting Foy’s right to respect for private life had been violated when the State failed “to provide for ‘meaningful recognition’ of her female identity”. The Irish government
challenged his ruling.

“When it comes to this form of adversarial court system, instead of learning from a person who has been diagnosed by a consultant of the State, they tried to prove I was wrong,” says Lydia. “All the effort they put in was used destructively instead of constructively. It’s a very peculiar system.”

In June 2010, the Government withdrew its appeal and set up an inter-departmental committee on the legal recognition of transsexuals. The report of this Gender Recognition Advisory Group was published in July 2011 and recommended legislation to recognise transgender people. Four years later, on July 15, the Government passed the Gender Recognition Act 2015, providing a process enabling trans people to achieve full legal recognition of their preferred gender and allowing for the acquisition of a new birth certificate that reflects this change.

Although Lydia’s long and arduous legal battle directly led ot the recognition of trans people in Ireland, she neither considers herself an activist or a hero. “I was looking for my basic rights,” she says. “I had been treated very badly and I wanted to get understanding. I knew I had ot battle on. I had to educate everybody, the media, the law, and at times it felt like an impossible thing to achieve.

“I have to pay tribute to FLAC, without whom this would not have happened. Michael Farrell, (Chief Solicitor with FLAC) was a marvel in harnessing support and keeping my morale up. There were very many people in FLAC over the years who put a lot of time and effort into making progress. At the start, Mr. Bil Shipsey requested leave for the judicial review. I’m sure he was a bit incredulous back then, but he had patience and a good listening ear. There were very many court cases and eventually good support from Europe as well as at home, with organisations like TENI and GLEN doing great work.”

Lydia was put forward for the European Citizen’s Award by the current group of four Sinn Féin MEP’s, including Lynne Boylan, who invited Lydia’s entourage to Brussels ot witness her being presented with the award. Aseparate event was held earlier ni October at Dublin’s National Gallery, at which Lydia was presented with the medal that goes along with the award.

“It was a wonderful occasion, and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” says Lydia. “It was a surprise and an honour to get the award, and it was lovely to meet all the other winners in Brussels.

“With the endorsement of Europe, and the endorsement of everyone else in Ireland, I can now say that maybe I was doing something for the good of people for access to the law, and for future generations when it comes ot diversity. Hopefully, we’ll learn and in learning have more quality of life for the diversity that’s part of nature.”

Although Lydia has received her rightful plaudits since the victory of legal recognition, the fight has taken its toll. “I was fairly shunned in society, and it’s too late to redress a lot of that now,” she says. “A person has a right to a private life, but for me that was gone. All my personal life is in the public domain. People brand me as transgender, but I’m just myself. I want people to simply be considered themselves – a person, not a thing. I don’t want them to have to tell the world about themselves.

“So, what I want for young people is that they have that privacy, that they have that right to be treated like an ordinary citizen of Ireland.”

Stay tuned for more articles from 2015 as part of the #GenderRec10 campaign. To look through the GCN Archive for yourself, see the issues from 1988 to 1998 here, and more recent issues here.