AN Athy transgender woman has been awarded a prestigious European prize to honour her 22 year struggle for legal recognition in her female gender.

Dr Lydia Foy has fought the Irish legal system for 17 years to have herself recognised in the gender she has lived in for the last 25 years and was awarded the European Citizens prize for Ireland this week, fittingly, on the day that the Irish Government announced the amendment of the Gender Recognition Bill to remove two clauses which were resisted by the transgender community.

Dr Foy received the award for raising awareness of the hardship and suffering experienced by the transgender community in Ireland and for bringing about the introduction of the government’s Gender Recognition Bill, which will finally provide long overdue recognition of transgender persons.

The European Citizens Prize is awarded each year to individuals or groups in each European country for exceptional achievements in promoting social integration and European values.

“It’s like a big jigsaw that is all coming together,” said Dr Foy, who was nominated by Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan and supported by her three Sinn Fein colleagues.

“When they contacted me about putting me forward for nomination I said in for a penny, in for a pound, and didn’t really think beyond that,” she said.

“I was sort of on my own at the start of this struggle but there are an awful lot of people working hard on the campaign now. I’m a bit of a figure head, not by design, so this will be great for everyone else also and it is good for human rights.”

She began legal proceedings in April 1997 to challenge the refusal of the Registrar General to issue her with a new birth certificate and she was represented in the action by Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC).

Although she says they still don’t have the birth certificates a lot of work has been done.

“I would like to thank the four who got together to nominate me,” she added. “The whole European dimension to this is very nice.”