Court asked to rule on sex-change dispute

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 8

Court asked to rule on sex-change dispute

NZPA-Reuter Brussels Belgium has asked the European Court of Human Rights to rule on its refusal to allow a Belgian citizen to change officially from a woman into a man. The Council of Europe said in a communique that Belgium had asked the court to judge whether it was contravening the human-rights convention by refusing the 35-year-old Belgian permission to alter his birth certificate from female to male.

Mr D. van Oosterwijck, who was christened Danielle, has been requesting permission for six years. A Brussels court rejected his appeal in 1974.

He then appealed to the European Commission of Human Rights, mainly an enquiry and conciliation body, which said last year his request was well-founded. It asked both sides to settle the issue amicably on

the basis of respect for human rights, but they have failed and Belgium has asked the Strasbourg-based court for a decision.

Mr van Oosterwijck says he always felt like a man despite being a woman biologically.

In his twenties he underwent a successful four-year treatment of hormones and surgical operations to change him into a man.

But Belgian courts ruled the law did not allow artificial changes to a person to be taken into account. Mr van Oosterwijck is arguing that the Government’s attitude runs contrary to several articles of the human-rights convention concerning respect for a person’s private life, the right to marry, and protection against inhuman or degrading treatments.

Seven judges would soon be appointed to investigate

the case, the communique from the 21-nation Council of Europe said. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a Californian claiming to be neither male nor female after an allegedly botched sex-change operation is suing the University of Virginia and a surgeon for SUSI.S million.

The former patient, identified in the United States District Court suit as Selena Jagger, accused the university and Dr J. Williams Dutnell, chief surgeon in the May, 1976, operation, of negligence. The suit, which was filed last week, said they failed to exercise that degree of care and skill ordinarily exercised by health-care providers.

It contends that as a result of post-operative complications and negligence the plaintiff now is anatomically and functionally neither male nor female.