Welcome to the GIDI News page. Here you will find all the latest information on what GIDI as an orgnaisation has been working on.
May 2008:
Press release on the Government's decision to appeal the Lydia Foy High Court ruling.
January 2008:
Comment on the High Ruling in the Lydia Foy case.
December 2007:
Working Group for the Medical Symposium
The last meeting held before the Medical Symposium has taken place and was extremely positive. The date for the Symposium has been confirmed as the 20th February 2008. The venue is expected to be the Mansion House in Dublin. The event is to be opened by the Minister for Health, Ms Mary Harney TD. Our CEO Sara Cromwell will also be speaking at the Symposium.
What a perfect way to end the year! Gender Identity Disorder Ireland (GIDI) has just received confirmation from the Revenue Commissioners that we are now a registered charity.
November 2007:
New Employee
We are delighted to announce the appointment of our new office administrator Joan, who is due to take up her duties this month. We would like to extend a warm welcome to Joan and look forward to work with her as part of our growing team.
New Leaflets
We have received our new leaflets from the printer. The first is Gender Identity Disorder: The Facts and Gender Identity Disorder: for Service Providers. We hope to start distributing the leaflets over the coming weeks.
September 2007:
Meeting of the Working Group on the Forthcoming Medical Symposium
This meeting was well attended by all the relevant parties within the working group. A date was agreed for holding the symposium and is the 20 th February 2008. The venue has yet to be decided along with the speakers etc.
There should be no doubting the huge significance of this event and it behoves all those affected by GID to support this event. The next meeting is scheduled for December next.
July 2007:
European commission Round Table discussion on Social Reality
GIDI attended the Round Table Discussion on Europe’s Social Reality. The event took place at the European Commission offices in Dublin.
The purpose of the round table discussion was to take stock of the social realities across the member states of the EU. This included looking at the various types of discrimination experienced by various minority groups within the EU, including those experiencing difficulties with Gender Identity Disorder. The purpose of which is the development of an agenda for future policy making and a programme for equality across the wider European Union.
GIDI was delighted to have been given the opportunity to participate in the various discussions and to have made significant contributions to the questions addressed by the various groups present. We anticipate that these contributions will be included within the final report which is due out later this year.
ICCPR Shadow Report
GIDI participated in a round table discussion on the ICCPR Shadow Report, which was held at the offices of the Equality Authority in Dublin. The Shadow Report is designed to assess the Irish Government’s performance of its obligations under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights in Ireland. We have identified a number of issues of concern in regards to the government’s failure to protect the rights of those living with Gender Identity disorder. We anticipate that these issues will be included within the final report.
June 2007:
Meeting on Symposium
Another meeting of the Working Group for the Symposium took place this month. The discussions were around possible venues and who should be invited to speak. A representative from the Department of Health and Child has joined the working group. This is a very significant development in driving the project forward. The next meeting is due to take place in September.
May 2007:
Workshop on Gender Identity Disorder
GIDI held its first ever workshop on GID, which was held at the HSE Adult Counselling Services in Limerick. The workshop was a great success with lots of feedback from the participants. It is hoped that we will be able to conduct more of these works in the future with the other Adult counselling Centres around the country.
Interview with RTE:
Sara Cromwell did an interview with RTE for the documentary Web of Desire, which is due to be broadcast in the autumn.
Carmichael Centre:
We are delighted to announce that we have taken up residence in the Carmichael Centre. We are particularly delighted to be in such an excellent facility given that it will afford us the best possible location from which to achieve our vision of bringing Gender Identity Disorder into the mainstream of society and in providing our much needed services to our clients.
April 2007:
Registration for Charity Status
GIDI has applied to become a Registered Charity. This is a vital step in our ongoing development and in our ability to raise funds in particular. This could take a considerable period of time to complete and we will announce a decision as soon as we receive word from the Revenue Commissioners.
Lydia Foy & High Court
Representatives from GIDI attended the hearing at the High Court in support of Lydia Foy and her application for a Declaration of Incompatibility. We also got the opportunity to meet with Lydia’s legal advisors beforehand, in order to update them on some factual issues relevant to the case. We were able to make particular reference to the terminology being used and how this acts as a bar to people having a proper understanding of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical condition and in particular how the terminology was changed by the two leading international authorities, i.e. OCD 10 (WHO) and the DSM IV. This was raised during the hearing.
The judgement is due later in the year.
Carmichael Centre
We are delighted to announce that we have been successful in our application for office space and other facilities in the Carmichael Centre. This is a hugely significant development and opens up all kinds of possibilities for our organisation, not least our ability to mainstream both the organisation and the issues relating to Gender Identity Disorder.
Once we take up residence in the Carmichael Centre we will be in a position to establish a support group for those seeking help in the various stages of their journey through Gender Transition and provide a variety of other services too. We will be announcing more on this in the coming months.
March 2007:
Interview with Campus Radio at UCC, on issues relating to Gender Identity Disorder and the importance of getting help as early as possible and peer support. It was a positive interview and the response was quite good.
Interview with the Irish Star Sunday. This was a great opportunity to get the facts about Gender Identity Disorder into the mainstream media. The subsequent article was very well written but unfortunately was undone by the rather salacious headline used. We complained to the senior editor and were given an apology and an assurance that the matter would be addressed. The paper published a shorter article sometime later and the headline was more appropriate on that occasion.
February 2007:
Meeting with Carmichael Centre
As part of our efforts to bring GID into mainstream society we have applied to the Carmichael Centre with a view to acquiring an office space and a location for holding support meetings. The meeting went exceptionally well and we hope to receive word about our application over the next few weeks.
January 2007:
Following on from the decision to establish GIDI as a national support organisation for those experiencing difficulties with their gender identity and other related issues we have decided to apply to the Revenue Commissioners as a Registered Charity. The first step in this process is to register for tax, which we did earlier this month and are currently awaiting our new tax registration number. This is a long process and we await receipt of the tax registration number before proceeding to the next stage, which will be to apply to become a registered charity.
