Irish Human Rights Commission calls for transgender rights

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The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has stated that there is a need to reform laws regarding transgendered people and birth certificates.

In 2008, Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament, granted transgendered people the right to have a passport issued in their new gender.

Under the current Irish laws, however, a transgendered person is not allowed to have a new birth certificate issued in their new gender.

Transgendered people in Ireland are also unable to marry in their new identity.

The IHRC today called in a proposal for the government that they should create a working group to look into transgendered people’s rights regarding these issues, the Irish Times reports.

This group, the IHRC suggested, should include representatives from the transgendered community, the IHRC itself, and the Equality Authority.

The proposal is based on the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) findings that the prevention of transgendered people from receiving new birth certificates or marrying in their new gender is in breach of their human rights.

IHRC president Dr Maurice Manning drew on the UK’s approach to transgendered people’s rights as an example of what the organisation hopes to achieve in Ireland. He said:

“Prior to the adoption of the gender recognition act in 2004 by the British government it convened an interdepartmental working group on transsexual persons to consider the need for legislation and what form that legislation should take.

“This approach has much to commend itself in the Irish context.”

Dr Manning also said that the protection of transgendered people in Northern Ireland highlighted the issue of equivalence of rights, as provided for in the Belfast Agreement.

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