The Irish government has announced that it will publish a bill to recognise the gender of people who have undergone gender reassignment by the end of the year.

The Gender Recognition Bill will be the first law in Irish history of its kind and it will usher in legislation mean that a person will have their acquired gender fully recognised for all purposes, including dealings with the State, public bodies, and civil and commercial society.

This will be done through the issuing of a gender recognition certificate by the Department of Social Protection. The person would then be officially legally recognised by the State as being of the acquired gender from the date of the decision to issue the gender recognition certificate.

They would then be able to apply for a new birth certificate. They would be entitled to marry a person of the opposite gender or enter a civil partnership with a person of the same gender.

TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) welcomed the government’s announcement on the Gender Recognition Bill.

“Legal recognition is vital to improving the daily lives of trans people in Ireland and will help our community move out from the shadows,” said Communications manager, Aoife O’Driscoll. “This is also a significant step forward in ending Dr Lydia Foy’s (pictured above) 20-year struggle to be legally recognised in her true gender.

“We hope to work closely with the Government in the coming months to improve the proposed legislation to ensure that when it passes it protects the rights, dignity and privacy of all trans people in this country.”