Lydia Foy speaking at the launch of the Dublin Pride Festival in 2010.

Lydia Foy speaking at the launch of the Dublin Pride Festival in 2010.

IRISH TRANSGENDER WOMAN Lydia Foy has been shortlisted for ‘Campaigner of the Year’ at the prestigious European Diversity Awards in London.

Foy is one of eight nominees for the award which its organisers say, “celebrates organisations and individuals that have shown innovation, creativity and commitment to equality”.

Senator David Norris has also been nominated for the award for his long standing struggle for gay and lesbian rights in Ireland.

In October 2007 Foy won a High Court case when the court ruled that her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated by the failure to recognise her in her female gender. Michael Farrell of the Free Legal Advice Centre said that Foy’s nomination is a mark of her 20 years of campaigning:

It is also a rebuke to successive Irish governments which have failed to introduce legislation to recognise transgender persons ever since the European Court of Human Rights held that this was a basic human right in 2002.

“Ireland is now the only state in the European Union that has no provision for legal recognition of transgender persons”, he added.

Last year’s winner of Campaigner of the Year was Doreen Lawrence, mother of black teenager Stephen Lawrence who was murdered on London in 1993.

The winner and a runner-up will be announced at a gala dinner in London on 26 September.