Sex change dentist loses court identity battle

A transsexual dentist who claims she was trapped in the wrong body for more than 40 years lost a court battle tonight to be officially recognised as a woman.

Dr Lydia Foy, 55, who has two children, failed in a bid at Dublin’s High Court to overturn the decision that she was born a boy.

But Mr Justice Liam McKechnie said: ‘‘Of course this is a tragedy, not only for the person involved in this case, but for her family and two children’’.

The judge also accepted that the dentist, who was born Donal Mark in 1947, was ‘‘utterly genuine, honourable and committed to the belief she was born female’’.

He added: ‘‘Such people have an innate belief that they live in the wrong body.

‘‘They believe truly and rationally that they are members of that (opposite) sex.

‘‘It is irrevocable and with no cure. It can cause great humiliation and isolation’’, he said.

Dr Foy from Athy, County Kildare, had a genuine identity disorder Mr Justice McKechnie said.

‘‘He was from early childhood very different from his brothers,’’ he said.

‘‘He had little interest in participating in boyish activities. He was often on his own.’’

The judge said that as a child Dr Foy lived in ‘‘a secret world - all leading to a desire of wanting to look or act feminine’’.

But ‘‘biological indicators’’ must remain the way of determining gender as no firm science has shown the causes of transsexualism.

‘‘There could not have been any error of fact or substance’’ in the birth certificate registration, the judge said.

Dr Foy married his wife Ann in 1977 after graduating from Dublin City University, and fathered two girls, Jennifer and Claire.

But 12 years later the couple separated as Dr Foy suffered ‘‘deep and prolonged unhappiness’’ due to his transsexualism.

He had a sex change in 1992 and changed his name by deed poll the following year.

Dr Foy holds a driving licence, polling card, and British and Irish passports in her female name.

In the case, against the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages and The State, Dr Foy’s senior counsel, Bill Shipsey, said the case was one of his client having her true identity recognised by the State.

Dr Foy claimed that her birth, describing her as male, had been incorrectly registered.

Mr Justice McKechnie accepted that Dr Foy had a genuine psychological and medical condition which had been recognised by experts for 25 years, but he rejected the application that the birth was incorrectly registered.

The judgment, which took more than four hours to deliver, followed a 14 day hearing in the Autumn of 2000 and was the first of it’s kind in Ireland.