Transgender woman wins backdated pension pay

A TRANSGENDER person has won the legal right to make the Government pay her state pension from the age of 60 following a European court ruling.

The married woman, who cannot be named, could be eligible for £30,000 in back payments after the court ruled that the refusal to pay her pension from the age of 60 was discriminatory.

She was told she could not have it until the age of 65, the men’s state pension age, because she did not have a gender recognition certificate.

A devout Christian, the woman, born in 1948, was unable to obtain a certificate because under the law at the time doing so would have meant divorce or annulling the marriage, and she wished to stay married “in the sight of God”.

She sued the Department for Work and Pensions for five years of state pension she said she had unfairly missed because of the government’s stance.

The European Court of Justice ruled that the law was discriminatory as it “treats less favourably a person who has changed gender after marrying than it treats a person who has retained his or her birth gender and is married.”

Following the introduction of samesex marriage in 2014, the law changed to allow transgender people to remain married and still receive recognition of their new gender. But this was not backdated, so there was no provision for people who had already turned 60.

In a previous ruling, Court of Appeal judges ruled against her but said she had been the victim of “a real misfortune” and that changes in the law had occurred “too late for her to benefit”.

The case was referred to the Supreme Court, which said it was split on the issue and asked the European court for guidance. There are about 100 other cases that could be affected.

A spokesman for The Department of Work and Pensions said: “We are considering the implications of the Court of Justice of the EU’S judgment and will await the verdict of the Supreme Court.”