Lesbians Win Equal Right by Marrying

[Christine Burns <c_burns@email.msn.com>]

NEWS RELEASE

LESBIANS WIN EQUAL RIGHTS BY MARRYING

A lesbian couple will wed on Tuesday morning (10th November) at Camden
Registry office at 10.30am.

Earlier this year Dr Tracie O'Keefe, 43, a psychotherapist, and her partner
Katrina Fox, 32, a journalist, hit the headlines when the chief registrar 
of
Westminster refused to marry the couple, even though O'Keefe's birth
certificate records her as male. The original ceremony was cancelled at the
eleventh hour by the registrar who said he could not allow two women to
marry.

It has taken 8 months for the Government to concede and allow the couple to
marry as man and wife, even though Dr O'Keefe, a transsexual, has lived as
female since the age of 15.

Both Fox and O'Keefe, authors of the highly acclaimed book on 
transsexualism
Trans-X-U-All: The Naked Difference, are marrying out of protest for the
inequality shown to lesbian, gay and transgendered people by the UK
government.

O'Keefe and Fox are angry that they have to suffer the humiliation of going
through this ceremony in order to secure pension, inheritance and other
rights automatic to heterosexual couples.

O'Keefe says: "It is insulting, after having lived all my adult life as a
woman, to be forced to stand in front of bureaucrats and be referred to as
'he', 'Mr' 'the groom' and 'husband' just to protect our financial and
contractual futures. It is nothing less than abuse and an attack on my core
identity as a lesbian woman. Many other countries no longer allow this kind
of discrimination against transsexuals."

Fox adds, "We feel let down by the Government, which has backtracked on all
its pre-election promises to gay people - the age of consent, the decision
not to overturn Section 28 or support the Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Bill, which would outlaw discrimination against gays in the workplace. All
Tracie and I want is the right for our relationship to be recognised in
law - but for what it is - a lesbian relationship, not a heterosexual one.
It is ludicrous that we have to go to these lengths and Tony Blair should 
be
ashamed of himself."

Although the ceremony itself is private, O'Keefe and Fox are inviting
lesbians, gay men and transgendered people to come and protest outside
Camden Registry office and demand their equal rights from the Government.


ENDS