ECJ urged to test scope of equality law

Date: 21/12/1995

A TRANSSEXUAL known as P, sacked by a school for having a sex change, has won the first round in a legal battle against her former boss.

In an opinion delivered last week, Advocate-General Giuseppe Tesauro urged the European Court of Justice to stretch the limits of a 19-year-old directive to take account of changing sexual attitudes and habits. Tesauro said it should rule that EU equal opportunity law protects transsexuals, as well as men and women.

P, hired as a man, worked in a UK school until she was fired in 1992, shortly after announcing her intention to have a sex change. She claimed that once the directors discovered she was female, they started to treat her badly, leading to eventual dismissal.

The school, on the other hand, claimed that P was sacked because she decided to have a sex change and not because she was either a man or a woman.

This cut no ice with Tesauro who said he regarded as obsolete “the idea that the law should protect a woman who has suffered discrimination in comparison with a man, or vice versa, but deny that protection to those who are also discriminated against, by reason of sex, merely because they fall outside the traditional man/woman classification”.