Press For Change News Bites, 1996
Transsexual twin research 
Labour elects trans woman
Royal surgeon blackmailed
Employment rights confirmed by
European Court of Justice
Supreme Court overturns anti-gay law
"Make them pay" says Whittle
Japan urged to legalise GRS
Trans man’s marriage anulled after 17 years
So much for reporting restrictions
Trans women can be rape victims
Transsexual Twin Research ![[top]](/graphic/icon/blueptru.gif)
Transsexual Research Associates in the Natural Sciences, a Silicon Valley based group of physicians and scientists headed by Joy Shaffer MD, is conducting ongoing studies to unravel the biological causes of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). They would like to determine if sufficient numbers of transsexual twins can be found to do a twin study. If you are transsexual and have a twin, or if you have a twin who is transsexual, then Dr Shaffer would like you to consider participating in the study.
Dr Shaffer can be reached by email at SeahorseMC@aol.com.
Labour Elects Transsexual Woman
The Times Feb 27th, 1996
The Bethnall Green Labour party was reported to be setting up an enquiry following the election of a pre-operative transsexual woman to a women-only committee in Tower Hamlets, East London. The appointment was opposed by a small number of party members who apparently complained to Tessa Jowell, the Labour spokeswoman for women. The objectors also protested to Labour Party headquarters, claiming that the case "paved the way for any man to disrupt internal elections by wearing a dress and a wig and calling himself a woman". Julian Sharpe, the secretary of the Bethnall Green Labour Party said the the woman at the centre of the controversy ".. has always been accepted as a woman by the local party. Whether she was born a woman is irrelevant."
Royal Surgeon Blackmailed
The Times Mar 31st, 1996
A surgeon who was a key member of the team that carried out the Queen Mother’s recent hip-replacement operation was subjected to blackmail threats and forced to go public as a Sunday newspaper prepared to reveal his desire to undergo Gender Reassignment treatment. William Muirhead-Allwood made his plans public, following telephone threats two months previously from an unnamed blackmailer and the impending publication of the newspaper story. Times medical columnist Dr Thomas Stuttaford praised the surgeon as a well-known and respected practitioner to whom many other doctors referred as their own GP and said that he thought it would be a tragedy if Mr Muirhead-Allwood’s announcement gave rise to prejudice and anxiety that interfered with his future as a surgeon.
Employment Rights Confirmed by European Court of Justice
April 30th, 1996
The European Court of Justice confirmed on 30th April the recommendation of its’ Advocate General in the landmark unfair dismissal case, P vs S and Cornwall County Council. As a result of that judgement it is now against the law in all European States for an employer to discriminate against a transsexual person on grounds of their condition. You can read the news release we sent out to our worldwide mailing list on the day and now also the judgement itself, as published in the Times Law Reports.
In addition you can also read the full and unedited version of The Living Truth, the article which ’P’ herself wrote for The Independent. See also Dinner in Cornwall, P’s inaugurating contribution to our UK Rage Page.
Supreme Court declares anti-gay law unconstitutional
Reuters May 20th, 1996
In a decision which is likely to have far-reaching implications for American gay rights campaigners, the US Supreme Court has ruled, by a 6 - 3 majority, that a 1992 Colorado state measure, barring the adoption of gay rights legislation, was unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court majority that the Colorado statute unfairly singled-out persons based on a single trait, their sexual orientation, and then denied them the possibility of legal protection across the board. Speaking after the announcement, Peg Bryon, a New York gay rights activist said, "It means that all Americans … gay and non-gay … share the same right to seek protection against discrimination [..the court has said..] the rights of a minority cannot be trampled by the majority."
The spirit of the ruling mirrors the recent finding of the European Court of Justice in the case of P vs S and Cornwall County Council. In that case the Advocate General argued why Europe’s Equal Treatment Principle should apply to to a group of people being excluded from UK employment protection on the basis of another single trait … their gender identity. The US ruling is therefore seen as highly significant in the run-up to yet another human rights case to be heard shortly in the European Court of Human Rights. (See Sheffield and Horsham vs H.M. Government in Court Case Diary).
Make them pay says Whittle
June 11th, 1996
In a withering attack on the UK government, Press for Change Vice President Stephen Whittle vowed in a recent newspaper interview, "We will make the bastards pay".
The attack came in response to Home Office minister Michael Howard’s statement on a recently leaked cabinet office paper, which identified his department as the one best suited to lead the goverment’s policy response to transsexual rights demands. Right-winger Howard, whose department was recently critiscised for forcing pregnant women prisoners to give birth in chains, is said by the Daily Mail newspaper to have endorsed a departmental statement which said : "Ministers have no intention of changing the law to allow transsexuals to marry".
The leaked document, which Press for Change has obtained and published in full, openly acknowledges the day to day problems created for UK transsexuals by their legal status, and was commissioned by the government in response to mounting calls for it to stop wasting further public money in the courts trying to justify the unjustifiable.
The price of bigotry will be determined on September 12th when an illegally dismissed local goverment manager returns to an industrial tribunal hearing in Truro, Cornwall, to claim substantial damages against her former employers. Legal experts are predicting a five figure payout. See Court Cases.
Japan Urged to Legalise Gender Reassignment Surgery
Reuters July 2nd, 1996
A Japanese medical ethics committee has urged the government there to legalise sex-change operations as justifiable therapeutic treatment for people who feel uncomfortable with their gender.
Transsexuals in Japan at present are forced to go abroad for their treatment, as it is specifically against the country’s Eugenic Protection Act to remove sex organs other than for medical reasons.
An ethics committee at Saitama Medical College near Tokyo said legal and other medical experts should help encourage Japan to lift the ban on sex-change surgery and stressed that sex-change operations were permitted in most Western countries and Taiwan and South Korea.
Transsexual Man’s Marriage Anulled After 17 Years
Various UK sources July 18th, 1996 — see e.g. Wife discovers husband of 17 years is a woman, Daily Telegraph
The UK Court of Appeal has heard how a transsexual man’s marriage was declared null and void after 17 years when a private detective, hired by his wife, uncovered the fact that he had a been registered and raised from birth as a girl.
The couple, who have two children aged 9 and 4 by artificial insemination, had begun divorce proceedings after a serious row, in which the wife had accused her husband of "not being a real man", although up until then they had had sex with the aid of an artificial penis which (according to the husband’s counsel) the two had purchased together. It was said in court that the wife had apparently just accepted that her husband was "very small" or "deformed" and that she had had adequate opportunity to see and discuss his status before the marriage. Following the break-up, however, a private detective had uncovered the husband’s birth certificate, showing his legal status as female.
The marriage was originally annulled on the grounds that the man had been held to have lied when he declared for the marriage certificate that he was a bachelor, without any legal impediment to marry the woman. This alleged falsification also then meant that he was denied an interest in the proceeds of the marriage and the right of access to his children.
A substantial inheritance of the wife’s is at stake in this case, however, and interest in the appeal centres on whether the man could be said to have committed perjury or not. If the accusation of perjury is upheld then his interest in the inheritance (and access to the children) would be lost. If the appeal court were to acknowledge his status as male though, then then new divorce grounds would have to be found, and his right to the proceeds of a seventeen year union would be subject to the normal considerations attendant on the end of a marriage. The case parallels the infamous 1970 Corbett vs Corbett divorce case in many ways and comes at a time when several new challenges to the outcome of that case are about to be heard in the European Court of Human Rights. (See In Court.)
In a move seen as highly significant, the three appeal court judges have reserved their judgement till a later date and Lord Justice Ward, announcing the deferral, said "We are aware of the growing body of medical and international opinion that this court will ignore at its peril".
Update : In November 1996 the appeal was lost. Commenting on the case the man’s solicitor, Madeleine Rees, said however :
“We lost [the case] but on the facts, rather than on the laws. There was clear indication from the judges that they believe that Corbett needs revisiting, and perhaps an analysis of the law should take into account the concept of gender rather than sex. They said that the New Zealand case and the jurisprudence from the US could not lightly be dismissed and in those cases it was said that once a transsexual has undergone treatment, and the other party is aware of their condition, then there is no legal impediment to marriage.”
So much for reporting restrictions
By Christine Burns, Aug 28th, 1996 (updated October 4th)
In spite of a court ban on reporting anything which would identify the man woman and child in the X,Y and Z case just heard by the European Court of Human Rights a British national tabloid newspaper has named the man and his partner in an article describing the case.
The Daily Mail’s naming of our very own Dr Stephen Whittle was certainly not a welcome or invited act. For a newspaper which normally struts such an overinflated sense of righteousness to show such blatant contempt for a court’s privacy order perhaps says it all though.
Not one to cry over spilt milk, Stephen has risen to the challenge anyway. The reporting restrictions always were there to protect his family not himself. With the cat out of the bag, however, it means that Stephen has had plenty of opportunity to state his case … loud, clear and with the directness of a father rightly concerned for the well being of his children. And the newspaper with such concern about "the family" perhaps ought to listen when he opens his mouth. They may, after all, learn something!
Transsexuals can be rape victims
October 28th, 1996
In a decision which will be cold comfort to those who knew the reality already, a High Court judge has finally demonstrated that English Law may yet be capable of a rational decision, by ruling that a transsexual woman with a surgically constructed vagina can be raped. The ruling by Mr Justice Hooper is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, since the April Ashley case in 1970 plunged transsexual people into a legal no-man’s land, and made transsexual women, in particular, easy prey for violent sexual assault. More worryingly, it has taken a full two years since male rape was outlawed by the courts for transsexual women to join the rest of society in having at least a legal sanction against those attackers whose real and violent intentions can be in absolutely no doubt.
It was a hollow victory for the plaintiff in this case, however. In spite of the historic ruling, the jury at Reading Crown Court returned a not guilty verdict to charges facing the man accused of raping a 46 year old transsexual female prostitute on Christmas Day 1995.
Some readers may be shocked to learn that many of the Rape Crisis Centres set up around the country to counsel and support rape victims will often still turn transsexual women away too … with the less-than-sensitive suggestion (in one case) that the victim might be happier discussing her feelings with a man. No comment.
