The first transsexual in the Southern Health Board area to receive funding for a sex-change operation has lodged a complaint with the United Nations about the treatment of transsexuals in Ireland.
Ms Diane Hughes, from Macroom, Co Cork, underwent a sex-change operation in Leicester earlier this year and paid the £5,000 herself.
Until then, despite a lengthy correspondence with it, the Southern Health Board had refused to pay the cost of the operation despite the fact that Ms Hughes claimed it was "a proper medical procedure to deal with a medical condition".
She took an action against the board, and last week this was settled out of court and the cost of the operation was refunded.
Ms Hughes said the UN was examining the treatment of transsexuals as well as members of the gay and lesbian community in various countries, and in view of this she decided two months ago to lodge a formal complaint about the treatment of transsexuals in Ireland.
"I was delighted that the Southern Health Board settled my claim, but in making my complaint to the UN, I wanted to highlight the inequalities of the system and maybe help other transsexuals who were going through what I had to go through," she said.
The Southern Health Board had maintained there was no urgency about the operation, but Ms Hughes argued the opposite was the case because she was undergoing hormone therapy in preparation for it.
At her home near Macroom yesterday, where she lives with her 13-year-old biological son, Gareth, and her partner, Caroline, Ms Hughes said she would not reveal her previous name because that part of her life was over and she wanted to put it behind her.
"When I was a guy I was a really miserable person, to be honest. Now I'm very happy and I know that the friends who stuck with me through all of this are my real friends. My son has grown up knowing that I always had another facet to my personality and he's taken it all quite naturally. He is not in the slightest upset," she added.
Ms Hughes came to Ireland seven years ago to begin a self-sufficiency project using wind energy and growing her own vegetables.
"I would not describe myself as unemployed. I work in the home and my partner works outside the home," she said.
"One of my motivating factors in bringing the situation to the attention of the United Nations was that my friend, Lorraine O'Regan, a transsexual from west Cork who died some months ago, underwent terrible stress because of the loneliness of her situation.
"She was very supportive of me and I wanted to do everything possible to highlight the position and help other transsexuals."