18-October-2000

Dentist Lydia Annice Foy … she is seeking to have her birth certificate altered to record her sex as female, not male

Transsexual in court plea to alter birth cert

By JOHN MADDOCK

A MALE to female transsexual who has undergone extensive “gender reassignment” surgery applied to the High Court yesterday to direct the alteration of her birth certificate to record her sex as female, not male.

It is the first case of its kind before the Irish courts.

The judicial review proceedings have been by taken by dentist Ms Lydia Annice Foy (53), with an address at Athy, Co Kildare, whose name is recorded on the birth register as Donal Mark Foy, born in June, 1947.

DEED POLL

The court heard that, as Donal Foy, she married in 1977 and has two daughters.  The marriage ended in the early 1990s and she has no contact with her wife and daughters.  She changed her name to Lydia Annice Foy by deed poll in 1993 and holds a driving licence, medical card, polling card, and UK and Irish passports in that name.

But her birth certificate still records she is a male and she has taken proceedings against the Chief Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths and the State to alter that.

The applicant’s wife and daughters are notice parties to the action but only the daughters are legally represented, the wife failing to qualify for legal aid.  Mary O’Toole SC, for the daughters, said they had concerns about the implications of the action for their parents’ marriage.

Bill Shipsey SC, for Ms Foy, said his client was not seeking to change the birth registration of her daughters or to affect their succession rights in any way.  His client was born with congenital gender disability, sometimes called gender dysphoria, but commonly referred to as transsexualism.  The case was about his client’s right to her true identity and to have it recognised by the State.

It was conceded that, at birth, the applicant had the external genitalia of a male and was registered as a male on that basis.  The determination of gender on the basis of external genitalia was a practice dating back two centuries and the Registrar’s decision was based on regulations of 1880.  Our understanding of how the human body was made up was now much more comprehensive, he said.

Ms Foy’s case was that she is, and always was, a female and that there were other indications of gender all of which had to be taken into account to determine true gender, added counsel.  While the traditional view was that sexual differentiation was complete at the formation of external genitalia, the court would hear from experts that this was not the end point of sex differentiation, that the brain was also differentiated into male and female and this largely correlated with future sexual and non-sexual behaviour.

There was now a body of scientific evidence which supported a finding that there was a neurobiological basis for sexual brain differentiation in humans, counsel said.

In his client’s case, her brain was at birth, and now, female.  From as early as she could remember, she considered herself female, and in her dreams and aspirations, was female.  She had had to endure great distress in her life as a result of her congenital disability and had tried to live with her family and society’s expectation that she would live and function as a man while her own belief, conviction and determination was that she was first a girl and then a woman.

COUNSELLING

Mr Shipsey said that as his client advanced through early middle age, she had an increasing desire for the physical anatomy to be made more congruent with her psychological side.  She had psychiatric counselling and began a painful, costly and ultimately irreversible process of gender assignment.

Significantly, Mr Shipsey said, the cost of the surgery was underwritten by the Eastern Health Board which had to be satisfied of the genuineness of his client’s needs and the reality of her congenital disability.

While Ms Foy had changed her name by deed poll, she was still required to produce a birth certificate for a number of professional, official and social purposes, or to give the name on the birth certificate.  Consequently, for a number of purposes, she was still considered to be male.

The hearing continues today.

Copyright © Irish Independent 2000