Sunday December 3rd, 1995

U.K. Transsexuals a Breed Apart

By ANNA MINTON

LONDON (Reuter) Christine Burns is a 42-year-old businesswoman from Hartford, a prosperous commuter village in Northern England.  A self employed computer consultant, she is also active in local politics as secretary of her Conservative Party branch and chair of the women’s constituency supper club.  In her spare time she does voluntary counselling work.

With a smart two-piece suit and an immaculate house, she is the epitome of English respectability.  Yet she believes she is one of a group of 5,000 men and women who are among the citizens most discriminated against in Britain.

Although sex-change surgery is carried out on the National Health Service, and is supported by medical opinion, legally speaking men and women in Britain cannot change sex.

Since 1970, transsexuals have not been allowed to alter their birth certificates to reflect their physical change of status.  And as Britain has no legal alternative to the birth certificate as an identity document, the transsexual is obliged to reveal intimate details to complete strangers at almost every turn.

The result, Christine argues, is a denial of basic human rights, seen most often with cases of unfair dismissal.  “We are the only citizens in the country who are not protected by the U.K.’s sex and employment discrimination laws,” she said.

A host of everyday matters require official ID, she points out.  Applying for insurance, mortgages and pension plans invites a continual breach of privacy.  Marriage is out of the question, while inadequate protection against assault and the possibility of being sent to a prison for the opposite sex are also legal realities in Britain.

Within the European Union, she believes, only Ireland ranks with Britain in its treatment of transsexuals.

What reallv rankles Christine and the transsexual lobby group, Press for Change, is their belief that Britain’s laws are the result of a legal accident.

Between 1944 and 1970, transsexuals were provided with legal support: birth certificates were annotated, marriage was legal and the rights of citizens under detainment and imprisonment were assured.

However, in a notorious divorce case in 1970, the marriage of transsexual model April Ashley was ruled null and void on the ground that she was male.  Although this ruling was for the purposes of marriage only, it has since been used in all circumstances in which gender is legally relevant.  “As a result of that case, we were unintentionally branded as nonpeople,” said Christine.

In August the High Court ruled that there is cause to review the whole birth certificate question.  Meanwhile, in a case currently awaiting judgement in Europe, it has been argued for the first time that the issue at hand is gender confirmation: transsexuals are born a certain gender, then they have confirmation surgery.

Christine says that she knew she was a woman from the age of 3 and she believes that the transsexual label is not helpful to her in a day-today context.  “The goal at the end of the day is to be what you always thought you were in the first place,” she said.

“Transsexuality is something I’ve suffered from.  I’ve been cured of it and moved on.  I’m a woman, that’s the beginning and the end of the story,” she added.

The contradiction she faces is that transsexuals rarely wish to go public, preferring instead to remain invisible, accepted members of their communities.

In September she decided to relinquish her privacy to take advantage of what, she hopes, is a shift in public opinion.

“Because a number of factors are coming together indicating that the mood may be changing, I felt I had no choice (but) to stand up on behalf of the thousands I represent,” she said.

“I had been quietly active for years, writing letters to ministers but adding that I hoped they would be discreet,” she said.

“It made me feel grubby and nervous, and finally I decided that if you want people to see you for what you are, you’ve got to show them what you are.  I think public opinion is moving in a way that nobody has really acknowledged on the surface, and I hope that if the issue is carried forward to a more public representation, the need for change will dawn on our legislators,” she added.

So far the response of her astonished fellow Conservatives has proved heartening.  “They’ve gone out of their way to let me know that it’s business as usual.  At social gatherings since, people have done little things to let me know I’m supported.  I remain secretary and vice chair of the branch, because people felt my past had nothing to do with my ability to get on with the job.”

She points out that transsexuality is as old as the hills.

The ancient Greeks wrote about it, while in India a special caste was created for transsexuals with its own rites of passage.  If Tory activists in 1995 can swallow it then surely, she pleads, it’s high time for Britain to fall in line with the rest of Europe.

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