Sex change medic wins Navy pension
By Michael Paterson
THE Navy has given a sickness pension to a Falklands veteran forced out because of sex change treatment.
Lynda Cash, 49, was Leading Medical Assistant Brian Waling when she was forced to leave the Navy after 15 years service, which included serving alongside the Duke of York in the Falklands. The Navy’s personnel division has now ruled that it was post-traumatic stress disorder, not the hormone treatment, which made Mr Waling unsuitable to stay on.
He suffered a breakdown in 1986, early on in the hormone treatment which preceded the sex change. A psychiatrist diagnosed that Mr Waling was “displaying a severe degree of temperamental unsuitability for Service life” and should be discharged.
But last year, the now Miss Cash launched a legal action at a civilian employment tribunal claiming sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, medical negligence and disability discrimination against the Navy. She also claimed for a disability pension after being officially diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the Falklands conflict.
In spring this year, the tribunal ruled that Miss Cash’s claims against the Navy should not go ahead. The Navy then examined her sickness pension claim and decided her case was genuine. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We have started paying her the pension that is due to sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
A letter from the Naval Personnel Secretariat to the Navy’s Medical Board of Survey in June, and copied to Miss Cash, said: “Because her post-traumatic stress disorder remained undiagnosed or acknowledged, her gender dysphoria and its apparent effects became the primary reason for dealing with her case administratively.”
But Miss Cash has lodged an appeal to continue with her other claims. At her home in Westhoughton, near Bolton, Greater Manchester she said: “I feel I was fully able to do my job when they discharged me.”
14 January 1999: Navy ’forced war veteran to quit after sex change’
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