Trans rights activist Dr Lydia Foy has today settled her landmark case against the State, in which she sought to have her preferred gender reflected on her birth certificate.

The High Court today heard that the action would be settled on the basis of the Government’s “firm intention” to enact the Gender Recognition Bill “as soon as possible in 2015”, which would enable Dr Foy to get the certificate by next year.

The settlement comes 21 years after she first wrote to the registrar general looking for the certificate in 1993. When she was refused, she took court action with support from Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), in a bid have her gender legally recognised.

In 2007, the High Court found the State’s failure to legislate for the recognition of trans people in their preferred gender breached the European Convention on Human Rights. It wasn’t until six years later that Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton published heads of a Gender Recognition Bill.

While Dr Foy was not in court today, her solicitor Michael Farrell from FLAC said she was “very pleased” with the outcome.

He continued, “This was a welcome, if overdue, conclusion to 17 years of litigation by Dr Foy just to get herself recognised in the gender she has lived in every day for the last 24 years,” adding that it was also a “major step forward” for the Irish trans community, who have been “waiting for legal recognition for many years”.