Girl born a boy wins new birth certificate
By Celia Hall
A GIRL of 10 who was born a boy has won an eight-year battle to have her birth certificate changed so that she can be legally recognised as a girl.
A 47-page submission by Prof Charles Brook, an endocrinologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, where Joella Holliday has been treated, finally convinced the Office for National Statistics to take the rare step of changing the paperwork.
Her mother, Julia Farmer, 30, said she had been prepared to take her daughter’s case to the High Court if necessary. Now mother and daughter, from Pinchbeck, Lincs, are waiting for the postman to bring the new birth certificate.
Joella was born with severe lower abdominal abnormalities and malformed organs. At first it was not clear if she was male or female but hormone tests showed her to be chromosomally male.
For the first year of her life she was treated as a baby boy. But following medical advice her parents put her in a dress and treated her as a girl from her first birthday.
Joella, who was originally christened Joel David Holliday, has enchanted staff at Great Ormond Street by her good spirits and fortitude. She said yesterday: “It’s really good. Now I can look forward to getting married. It means a lot to me.”
Mrs Farmer said: “She’s just a normal little girl - she likes loud music, boys and shopping. There’s nothing different about her at all. She’s never been ribbed at school. She’s just been accepted and always has been right from the beginning.”
Joella’s second christening will take place in three weeks’ time. When she was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, her abnormalities were so severe that doctors feared for her life and she was quickly baptised.
Mrs Farmer said: “I had three scans during pregnancy, but nothing was picked up. When I came round they wouldn’t tell me whether I had a boy or girl. All I knew was that she had a hole in her stomach. Then the chaplain came in to christen her and I knew then it must be bad and that they didn’t think she was going to live. He asked me whether I had thought of any names and I said Joel if it’s a boy, but we couldn’t think of a girl’s name. That’s how Joel went on to the birth certificate.”
Her mother’s understanding was that her baby was hermaphrodite, having characteristics of both sexes. Joella’s condition is called cloacal exstrophy and occurs in the embryo when there is a “mid-line fusion” of the cells that form the lower abdomen and genitalia.
She was referred to Philip Ransley, consultant urology surgeon, Great Ormond Street. The decision was taken that she would have a better and happier life if she lived it as female. Joella had her first surgery when she was 17 months old, followed by numerous operations and female hormone treatment.
Her mother said: “It was a terrible shock and it took a lot of thinking until we got to the decision that this is the only thing we could do. We were told that the operation should be done before she was 18 months old and they said we should set a day from which we would start treating her as a girl.
“We picked her first birthday and put her to bed as a boy. The next morning we put on a dress and she was Joella. As soon as we left the hospital we applied to have her birth certificate changed, but we were told it could not be. It was just so unjust and it’s only with Prof Brook’s help and my tenacity that we have got this far. It was not a case where we could get legal aid because there were no proceedings as such.”
Prof Brook said yesterday it would have been a “disgrace” if the birth certificate had not been altered. He said: “What I can’t understand is why everyone got in such a tizz about this and why it’s taken so long. It seems no one understood the nature of Joella’s complaint. It had not been explained properly to the relevant authorities and so they got it muddled up with transsexuals and all that rubbish. It has nothing to do with that at all. Joella had an embryological abnormality.”
Prof Brook said he believed that Joella’s assignment as a male child had been misguided rather than a mistake. It had not been appropriate to assign Joella to the male sex although she was “chromosomally a boy”. He said: “By the time she was about a year old it became clear that it would be kinder to bring her up as a girl.
“She has had a lot of operations and I think she will do well. She is a very sweet child. If we had been involved right at the beginning, she would never have been registered as a boy.”
The Rev John Read, the hospital chaplain who christened Joella, said: “It’s nice to know that she is being christened again. It’s a new start.”
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