Transgender Legal Rights
This case is known as Goodwin and I vs. UK and the judgment was delivered in July 2002. Both pursuers (those bringing the case) were Transgender. One of the pursuers had faced sexual harassment at work following her gender reassignment surgery while the other had been refused admittance to a dental course as she refused to show her birth certificate (showing as it did her previous gender). Both complained about the lack of legal recognition of their post-operative gender, their treatment in employment, their inability to marry either as a woman or as a man and various other aspects of their plight.
The court found that UK law lagged behind other European nations in its provision for Transgender legal rights, and that the pursuers' rights under articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights, respectively the right to privacy and the right to marry, had been breached. The recognition by the State of a Transgender's new gender was a legal right.
Following the judgment, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was passed and implemented, and had the effect of legally recognising a Transgender's chosen gender. A man who undergoes gender reassignment to become a woman is now legally a woman following the entry into force of the GRA.
One interesting aspect of this judgment is that Transgender can rely on their legal right to marry under Article 12 of the ECHR. This seems logical - take the case of the Transgender above who becomes a woman. Legally, she is now a woman and must be treated as such. To prevent the woman from marrying because she used to be a man would defeat the purpose of legally recognising her gender reassignment. However this is not a right that is extended to same-sex couples. It would be interesting if a case came before the Court of a Transgender woman who tried to marry another woman but was forced to enter into a civil partnership instead, as currently occurs in such a situation.
Other Transgender legal rights mirror those of the rights afforded to LGB people. Under the Equality Act 2006 it is illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexuality, while the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 provide protection for LGBT people in the workplace. While it is true that Transgender are not gay if they are attracted to members of their former sex because of their legal gender, they would nonetheless be protected on the grounds of sexuality and gender should they be discriminated against, harassed or victimised at work.
The EE(SO) Regulations have been used to protect a straight man who was mocked by his co-workers for being gay. The case, English vs. Thomas Sanderson Blinds Ltd 2008, found that, even though Mr English's tormentors knew him to have a wife and children, the fact that they were tormenting him for being 'gay' was enough of a link to his sexual orientation to justify using the Regulations to protect him.