The PFC Library - The Courts and Legal Debate
The case of Ewan Forbes, Baronet of Craigevar, is shrouded in official mystery. The official record concerning the 1967 challenge to the official gender change and right of succession of one of Scotland’s top peers, registered originally as a girl, appears to have been deliberately expurgated. Yet it is a case which, had it been recorded properly in the public record, cannot have failed to influence the outcome of the Corbett v Corbett case just two years later. Was there a conspiracy? Have Britain’s transsexuals suffered for a quarter of a century since by a wilful attempt to pervert the course of justice? Judge for yourself.
Legislating for Transsexual Rights : A Prescriptive form
This extensive paper by Dr Stephen Whittle examines the requirement and objectives for legislation dealing with transsexual changes of status and compares the approaches taken in a variety of legislations. He goes on to highlight the questions to be examined when drafting a law and the pitfalls in getting it wrong … and has thereby created what is probably, at this time, the most authoritative "how-to" manual in existence for legislators approaching this subject. (45Kb)
The European Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
With trans people in the UK repeatedly driven to seek justice in the European Court of Human Rights, it’s helpful to know just what the articles of the convention actually say. This link takes you straight to the horse’s mouth.
In this extract from an article published by the Society of Conservative Lawyers, Alexander Hill-Smith examines the impact in the UK of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Should Transsexuals be Sterilised?
Stephen Whittle looks at sterilisation requirements and legal status recognition for transsexual people.
Is He our Sister?
(external link)
"Is He Our Sister? Sex, Gender, and Transsexuals Under European Law" by Andrea C Loux, BA, JD of the Department of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh examines a barely reported case, at the end of 1996, involving a trainee woman police officer who was dismissed when West Midlands Police realised the implications of her legal status on her ability to carry out intimate searches of suspects. (This was originally reported here under the title Searching Questions Tax Police). Along the way, this excellent paper illustrates the inconsistency and gaping holes in the logic of one case after another, before and since, including the XYZ case of 1997.
Metropolitan Police guidelines
The Metropolitan Police was one of the first police services in the UK to produce guidelines on dealing with trans people. They are reproduced here.
You will find a complete index to the background of XYZ vs UK Government in the feature section which covered the case at the time. The full text of the judgement is now available, however, at the web site of the European Court of Human Rights. See also Dr Stephen Whittle’s own Analysis of the Court Judgement.
A happier decision in 1997 was the domestic courts’ rejection of an appeal against the "N" case, which extends the effect of the P vs S and Cornwall County Council decision in the European Court of Justice to commercial organisations (and not simply emanations of the state).
We also have the full text of the European Court recommendation (P vs S…) available to read, as delivered by Advocate General Tesauro on 14th December 1995.
A detailed review of the recommendation in the European Court in the case of P vs S and Cornwall County Council, by PFC’s Vice President and legal expert Stephen Whittle Ph.D, M.A, LL.B, B.A, Lecturer, The School of Law, The Manchester Metropolitan University.
The Conceptualisation Of Transsexualism In
Matrimonial Proceedings
This paper by Anthony Noble examines the way in which the perceptions (and consequently the opinions) of UK judges have swung over the course of time when evaluating trans people’s circumstances in matrimonial procedings.
Congratulations, You Can Now be Raped!
It is a chilling thought that it took no less than 26 years, from 1970 until October 1996, for British law to decide that when a rapist’s penis violates a transsexual woman’s vagina, they perhaps ought to call it rape. What they thought it was for the preceeding quarter century merely added insult to injury.
Transsexual Man’s Marriage Annulled
After 17 Years
As recently as July 1996 it is still thought acceptable, however, to let a partner use her partner’s transsexual past as a neat ploy to deny him a share in her inheritance. The media clearly weren’t impressed by the wife’s claims that she’d not realised her husband was a trans man, but presumably judges live more sheltered lives.
The edited correspondence of Dr Angus Campbell, a family law specialist, discussing the P vs S case and its’ logic with PFC’s Christine Burns.
If you thought there’s been a lot of activity in the last few months then, as they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Success is a magnet for lawyers, and the government is becoming increasingly beleaguered. (See also Questions in Parliament, above)
