European Court Ruling

by Clare Dyer, The Guardian (U.K. May 1st 1996

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

In the last issue of Polare we reported the case of a M.T.F. who lost her job with the Cornwall County Council, U.K., and was taking her case of unfair dismissal to the European Court. The following news item is reprinted from U.K. publication Gemsnews No.24, and outlines the findings of the Luxembourg Court.

Acollege administrator who was sacked for undergoing a sex change is to claim a six figure sum in compensation from Cornwall County Council after the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled yesterday that her dismissal was unlawful. The male to female transsexual named only as P, was sacked in 1992, part way through sex-change surgery.

P took her case to a Truro industrial tribunal which decided she had been dismissed for changing sex but that transsexuals were not covered by the Sex Discrimination Act. The tribunal asked the Luxembourg Court for a ruling on [if] the 1976 European Community directive on equal treatment for men and women at work made it unlawful to sack an employee for changing sex.

The court held that the directive did cover transsexuals because the discrimination was based on their sex.

The case will go back to the industrial tribunal to determine compensation. P's solicitor Madeleine Rees, said she would be claiming "hundreds of thousands of pounds" because she had lost not only a well paid job but opportunities for advancement.

P said "I'm delighted, both on behalf of myself and everyone in Europe that has this difficult medical condition" After losing a package worth seventy thousand pounds, she said she had to take a job paying twenty three thousand pounds, but was now earning thirty thousand pounds as an academic outside the west country.

The ruling paves the way for compensation for Bobbi Elmer, a 49 year old male to female transsexual whose case, at Exeter Industrial Tribunal was adjourned pending the Luxembourg judgment. the tribunal ruled last October that her "gender identity disorder" was the reason behind decisions by the Home Office to withdraw her right to counsel prisoners at Exeter, and by her employer, Insight Alcohol Services, not to offer her another job.

The government is likely to extend the Act to cover transsexuals.

In the meantime, Ms Rees said, it would be open to courts and tribunals to re-interpret the Act without legislation.

The point will be tested next month when a transsexual ride engineer, sacked by a theme park, takes her former employers to the London South industrial tribunal.

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