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A Landmark Win, Why Our Daughters Can At Last Be Our Bridesmaids

by Stephen Whittle, Edited from the Online Times of London.

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Britain's 5,000 transsexuals are to win legal rights after the landmark European Court of Human Rights (E.C.H.R.) ruling. The decision two weeks ago, in a case brought by Christine Goodwin, comes not before time. It is 32 years since Lord Justice Ormrod in Corbett v Corbett in 1970 effectively dealt a blow against transsexuals, removing the mechanisms that existed for transsexual people to have their birth certificates amended to reflect their new gender, and enabled them to marry.

When the judge decided that the (male to female) transsexual April Ashley's marriage was void, his ruling condemned transsexuals always to be of the sex that had been written on their birth certificates - sentencing them to a life of secrets, constant fear and a position in law that left them unable to safeguard their partners and families financially and socially.

The decision in Goodwin marks the end of a long battle to reverse Ormrod's ruling. Mark Rees, a female to male transsexual, took the first case to Strasbourg in 1979. His was to be the first of a series of five brought by transsexual people over the past 23 years. At the time he said: "There are others waiting in the wings ... they will carry on the fight", as indeed, they have done.

In parallel with the cases to Strasbourg, challenges have been made in Britain and the European Court of Justice. Although far more cases have been lost by transsexuals than won, the wins have been significant, ensuring job protection (P v S and Cornwall County Council ECJ 1996) and access to gender reassignment treatment on the National Health Service (A, D & G v NW Lancashire Area Health Authority, CA, 1999).

But the latest ruling (Goodwin and I) will make a vital difference to the daily lives of transsexuals. It means that they can rely on the principle that they are afforded privacy rights under the convention. Similarly, they could now get married and argue that they have not committed perjury by declaring themselves to be of their new gender. The marriages may still be open to question as to their validity, but if a couple do separate and seek a divorce or if a pension company refuses to pass on benefits on death on the basis that the marriage is void, then the transsexual person and partner can rely on the Goodwin decision.

Older transsexual women facing retirement should be able to claim their state pension. The Inland Revenue has recently used its discretionary powers to award pension rights at 60 to a transsexual woman who was born in New Zealand, as she had been able to change her birth certificate to reflect her new gender. Several transsexual women, who were forced to give up work at 60 or face disclosure of their past, yet who received only social security benefits rather than a pension, could now make a claim for the lost income and hurt they suffered.

In families such as ours where a transsexual man has been refused permission to register as the father of his partner's children by donor insemination, the couple could now marry and jointly adopt the children. Those starting families in the future should be able to register as the father of the child.

The decision in Goodwin is not, however, the culmination of the campaign, though it could be said to be the beginning of the end. The bureaucratic mess will continue until the law is clarified to ensure that transsexual people in the U.K. can have their birth certificates amended to reflect a change of sex, and that the change is valid for all legal purposes.

Without that, the courts may not regard a new birth certificate as final, leaving the sex of transsexual people open to further challenge. This has happened in the U.S., where some transsexual people have found that new birth certificates were not recognised in court. The E.C.H.R.'s decision means that it is time for the Government to make a clear commitment to legislate for change. The reconstituted interdepartmental working group on transsexuals would do well to make sure it uses the transsexual community's expertise in ensuring that the sort of half-cocked legal mess that exists in the US is not created here.

Transsexual people in the U.K. have proved themselves capable of great staying power, personal bravery and organisation in this fight. In the past ten years they have created a climate in which legal change in these areas was bound to come. In the meantime, as a transsexual man in an unmarried yet successful relationship of twenty-four years, I have to debate whether to risk it all by getting married. Perhaps marriage would lead to an early divorce. Yet, it would provide pension benefits to my partner and security to our children.

Perhaps we should just sneak off to the Registry Office in order not to tempt fate. But our three daughters would kill us; they are desperate to be bridesmaids.

Edited from the Online Times of London. The author is a reader in law at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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