Transgender rights pioneer hailed in Brussels

A transgender rights activist who led a 22-year court battle for the recognition of trans people in Ireland has been awarded the Citizen’s Prize from the European Parliament.

Dr Lydia Foy, now retired, was joined by her family and solicitor Michael Farrell from the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) at the parliament building in Brussels yesterday to receive the accolade.

The Citizen’s Prize was awarded to 47 people from 26 EU countries. Dr Foy was nominated for the prize by four Sinn Féin MEPs.

Dr Foy took the State to court for the first time as an unemployed woman in 1997, receiving assistance from FLAC. She was challenging the refusal of the Registrar General to amend the sex on her birth certificate.

Though Dr Foy lost that case, it was later revisited after victory in a similar UK case, and Ireland’s position was found to contradict theEuropean Convention on Human Rights in 2007.

In 2013, Dr Foy and FLAC started further action seeking an order requiring the government of Ireland to act on the 2007 judgment.

Dr Foy said she faced the “worst form of adversarial legal system” in bringing her challenges.

However, Dr Foy last month became the first trans person in Ireland to have their birth certificate amended to reflect their identity.

Speaking in the European Parliament, she said: “Society has to catch up now, to be inclusive and totally open.”

Sylvie Guillaume, vice-president of the European Parliament and chair of the Citizens’s Prize jury, thanked the winners for upholding the “European model based on rights, justice and democracy”.