19th October 2000

Transsexual tried to conform until she collapsed

A DENTIST told the High Court yesterday that she had “tried to conform until she collapsed” before having major sex change surgery and had not known until some time beforehand that her condition got worse with age rather than better.

Lydia Annice Foy, 54, was giving evidence on the second day of proceedings in which she is seeking an order to have her birth certificate altered to record her as being female rather that male.  The respondents are the Chief Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths and the State.

Ms Foy, with an address in Athy, Co Kildare, is a male to female transsexual who, it was stated, underwent gender reassignment.  She is recorded on her birth certificate as being Donal Mark Foy.  She married in 1977 and has two daughters.  The marriage ended in the early 1990s and she changed her name by deed poll to Lydia Annice Foy in 1993.

Asked by her counsel, Mr Bill Shipsey SC, to tell of her earliest recollections about her condition, Ms Foy said she remembered being “very different.” At a very early age she was conscious of what she wore.  “I had a feeling of femininity,” she added.

It was very difficult to talk about her condition at the time.

She first had doubts about her sexual identity at about 15 when she read books relating to childhood and adolescence.  She was left feeling guilt and wondered if she would get better.

In the early 1960s, she went to Clongowes Wood college and was there as a boarder for five or six years.  She was cross-dressing only when it was safe.

Afterwards, she enrolled for a pre-medical course at UCD but after a year she transferred to dentistry.  In the early 1990s, she worked as a dentist in Saudi Arabia for a time.

In 1991, she went to England to look for work and also to seek counselling.  She saw a number of consultants before having her surgery in July 1992.

At one stage she applied to the Irish embassy for a new passport.  The reply she got was very disappointing because they were going to leave the sex on the passport blank.

Mr L J Gooren, professor of transsexology at the gender clinic in the Free University Hospital, Amsterdam, said they had about 150 patients per annum who had problems with their status as male or female.  Of the 150 patients, 80 to 90 per year proceeded to surgery.

Not every case was treated the same.  The guiding principles in assigning a person to one sex or another was the well-being of the subject in question.

Asked who made that decision, Professor Gooren said that when children were young, it was usually the parents.

If the decision was being made later, the children would have a say.

Answering Mr Shipsey, Professor Gooren said transsexualism was not a Western fad or condition.

It happened with the same frequency in Singapore or Holland.

The condition was one of the errors of becoming man or woman.  It was not a lifestyle or choice - it was a medical condition.

The hearing, before Mr Justice McKechnie, continues today.

Copright © Irish Examiner, 2000