Christine Goodwin (activist)
Christine Goodwin (4 June 1937 – 8 December 2014)[1] was a British transgender rights activist who played a crucial role in forcing the UK government to introduce the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
[2] She was a former bus driver who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1990, at Charing Cross Hospital, London, before eventually challenging the UK government in the European Court of Human Rights over her inability to draw a state pension at the same age as other women.
[1] Christine Goodwin underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1990, at a National Health Service hospital.
[4] The UK National Health Service was set up in 1948, 42 years prior to Goodwin's surgery, in order to give need-based care and work around people's monetary limits.
[10] Also, she was not able to obtain her winter fuel allowance, provided it the UK for heating and decreasing energy costs, for the same guarding of her birth certificate.
Christine Goodwin had been given some assistance by the government but it did not prove to do much good as they still were reluctant to give her acknowledgement of her gender.
The Department of Social Security allowed her to pay direct National Insurance contributions, which can qualify citizens for certain benefits and provide a pension.
[8] Her files were also marked "sensitive" which required higher clearance to access them but also made it so that she would have to make special appointments anytime she wished to do anything involving it.
[6] Any situation where she was required to present any of these three items of identification, or when they were at risk of coming to light, her biological gender was revealed.
[14] Goodwin claimed this gender marker caused her discrimination at work, including a dismissal from a prior job, and her inability to be married to a man.
[15] Goodwin's case was specifically based on the violations of Articles 8, 12, 13, and 14 of the European Commission of Human Rights.
In the European Commission of Human Rights, it is stated that; “Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.” As Goodwin argued that even though she was seen as a woman, has undergone gender reassignment surgery, and is in a relationship with a man, but still cannot marry him under current statutes and how that was a violation of Article 12, the Government argued that the matter should be left to district courts.
[16] The Court's statement was; “While it is for the Contracting State to determine inter alia the conditions under which a person claiming legal recognition as a transsexual establishes that gender reassignment has been properly effected or under which past marriages cease to be valid and the formalities applicable to future marriages (including, for example, the information to be furnished to intended spouses), the Court finds no justification for barring the transsexual from enjoying the right to marry under any circumstances.” [14] Accordingly, the Court agreed with Goodwin, and gave her the right to enjoy an opposite sex marriage.
[14] Because of this, the Gender Recognition Act was passed to allow her rights to come to fruition for her and other transgender individuals in the UK.
Anyone born in the UK or abroad with British authorities is now eligible to attain a new birth certificate for their recognized legal gender.
In December 2019, the Commons Library published a review of the Gender Recognition Process, focusing on its deficiencies.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was ranked in the second-lowest category due to its "intrusive medical requirements," which do not meet international human rights standards.
[21] Although this report was published the UK government decided to uphold the current law and not make any legislative changes regarding the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.
