1 The home page of Rachel Horsham was opened on the internet to enable users of the internet to have a more truthful account about who I am. For some time there have been accounts written about me and especially those published by the ECHR, (European Court of Human Rights based in Strasbourg France), BBC News, Press For Change and others who have used my name for their own interests. Therefore this page.

WHO AM I?

By Profession I am an actress and writer. Most of my life has been spent in the world of Theatre, Film and travelling. Now I write. My first complete book was my autobiography,

" Release of The Dove ". This was first published in 1993, as a special private edition. The final book was completed in 1998. Information about this book can be obtained from: - John Hale, of, Robert Hale Publishers, 45 Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R. OHT. England. Two new books will be forthcoming soon.

This home page is connected to law and aspects of medical science concerning those groups of people described as inter-sexes. For some years I was involved in a legal case against the government of the United Kingdom, concerning the legal status and recognition of one of those groups who are medically ascribed as being born transsexual. Medically and scientifically recognised as belonging to the known group of inter-sexes. This particular group of people at birth seems, according to their genitalia, to be normal males or females. At around the age between 4-5 years, they begin to have doubts about their assigned sex/gender and the indoctrination that they are that which has been assigned to them. Many of these people have grown into adult life without proper medical help from specialist. Their lives are one of silent misery and fear, in a nether world.

It has only been in the last few years that medical scientific research in the Netherlands by Swaab, Hoffman, Gooren and Zhou, et al has uncovered the first biological facts, which firmly place these people in the category of having been born with an inter-sex condition. Leading specialists and medico/scientific researchers in this field prefer to medically determine such cases as being " Pseudo Hermaphrodites ". The term transsexual having become one of the most abused medical terminologies's by those outside of the medical profession.

The onset begins at conception in the womb, when a persons sex blueprint starts in the stria terminalis, an area in the brain known as the hypothalamus. At conception this will blueprint as either male or female and will never change, neither can it be changed or altered by any means, such as hormonal influences, through ovaries or testis, or hormones taken by exogenous means. In effect they are the opposite sex to that which their outward genitalia proposes them to be. This is the same for other classical inter-sexes such as, AIS, CVAH, and CAH, all of them have one point in common, biologically they have aspects of both sexes and will at some stage in their life seek the medical and surgical help to correct a biological mistake.

Much of this was known already over 30 years ago, except the biological scientific facts were not completely understood or known. In the United Kingdom it was accepted as medical fact by some doctors who specialised in such cases and the law to correct their legal status was in force and written into the Births and Deaths Act. The statute law remains to this day. Unfortunately changes to this situation came about, starting with a legal action taken by a member of an aristocratic family in Scotland.

It was within the Forbes-Sempill family that a bizarre situation arose. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was apparently born female, what we would term transsexual today. She grew up gender dysphoric and at the age of 39 obtained medication from a doctor. The medication in question, testosterone. After this she had the original registration of her birth erased from the registers, which is a criminal act under Scottish law, and had it substituted with the name Ewan Forbes-Sempill, male. As a man he registered his name in the registers of titles as being heir to a title held in the family that was reserved only for male lineage.

There were two titles in the family. A Barony which could follow in either male or female lineage and a Baronetcy which could only follow in the male lineage the Barony was already held by a female member of the family with an accredited seat in the House of Lords. The Baronetcy was vacant, as the last holder of the title was deceased. He had a cousin who had already registered his name as being rightful heir to the Baronetcy. A court case ensued, and it was decided by the family, that the case should be heard in camera as a public case would bring embarrassment to the family. The manner of the use of the law that was used to hear this dispute was questioned publicly. Throughout the hearing of the case, those present, lawyers, doctors and the judge were aware of the real truth of the matter. The hearing was held in a manner that covered up the truth using fraudulent medical evidence. The decision was made that Ewan Forbes-Sempill should take the title and the cousin, who was the rightful heir according to the family lost. In essence the decision was made in favour of Ewan as to have done otherwise would have caused embarrassment to the family, and legal consequences, erasure of the original inscription in the birth registers. Under the law the birth registers can be amended, original information must remain but has no legal standing after an amendment.

Around the same time this case was being heard there was another case pending concerning a divorce petition begun by Arthur Cameron Corbett against his purported wife April Ashley, on the grounds, that at the time of the marriage she was legally of the male sex. When he married her he was aware of this and legally no marriage had taken place, therefore a divorce could not take place.

Arthur Corbett was heir in line to a Barony held by his father with which also carried a seat in the House of Lords.

Because of the judgement given in the Sempill case some members of the House of Lords were not happy with the prospects that such an occurrence could happen in their own family and somebody else could lose a coveted title with a position of power. The evidence of this was seen in the marriage between Arthur Corbett and April Ashley. Arthur Corbett already had a son who would become heir to the barony within the family after he died, but if his marriage survived with April Ashley, then a legal question could ensue. Would she have a right to the title and the seat in the House of Lords. The verdict of the Sempill case gave a good possibility of yes.

The proceedings in the Corbett case were engineered in such a way that would halt the use of the statutory law that enabled amendments to be made to the birth certificate. The statutory law could not be changed except by parliament, and that would mean public debate within the House of Commons. Such a debate could raise public questions, as it would fly in the face of the constitution, parliamentary law and the inherited rights within common law. Therefore, the Corbett case opened a way for this to be contrived, and at the same time creating a public smear campaign against anyone who might be unfortunate to be born as one of the known inter-sexes. What was done was illegal and broke the constitution of Parliamentary Statute law.

First and foremost the judge was selected. His verdict was preordained. Under customary law judges are not chosen to hear any particular case, but they hear cases on a system of a rota. It was made sure that this did not happen in the Corbett case. The judge chosen was Ormrod. J. During the proceedings he broke the basic rules of court by not adhering to the petition but decided to go into the alternative. He was aware that that there was no alternative. He was aware that April Ashley had never had her birth certificate amended after the medical and surgical treatment she had undergone. Therefore she was still legally male and no marriage had ever taken place, even though she and Arthur Corbett had gone through a ceremony of marriage. Ormrod was aware of all of this and should have announced that a divorce could not take place as no legal marriage had occurred as both petitioner and respondent, were legally of the male sex.

Instead Ormrod officially sanctioned a judgement that halted the right within common law to use the statute law to amend a birth certificate when deemed necessary by medical demand. He also interfered in the world of science and medicine by demanding that his opinion was to be absolute and could not be challenged. Shortly after his judgement he was a given a title and a seat in the House of lords.

Since that judgement lawyers and lay people have never investigated the background of that judgement. The British press, have pandered to the ignorant by instituting a smear campaign against those persons who may be born with an inter-sex, generating public discrimination, stigma and hate. After he delivered his judgement all recorded proceedings of the Sempill case were hidden away from the public domain and knowledge of the existence of the case was denied by highly placed government officials. During the proceedings of the Corbett case, the solicitor, acting for the respondent April Ashley, was threatened. By persons, acting on behalf of the government, if he made any attempt to use the Sempill case, as case law. All recorded proceedings of the Corbett case have been officially destroyed.

In 1993 I was forced to begin legal proceedings against the government of the United Kingdom because of their refusal to recognise and respect a demand through a court of law in the Netherlands that my birth certificate must be amended. The demand was supported by medical evidence that I was not of the sex allotted to me after my birth took place.

The case went to the ECHR (European Court and Commission of Human Rights) in Strasbourg France and was finally heard in public at the court in 1998.

The proceedings of this case took many years and when it was originally accepted by the ECHR in 1994 the Commission decided to couple it together with another case that had been presented at the same time. This was the case of Sheffield. She came to meet me in Amsterdam and I explained to her that I was about to present a new case to Strasbourg. Apparently she had already presented a case to the Commission, but it had been rejected, and was going to make another attempt. Her basis of her case in my view would be rejected again and she took note of what I had already set up in my own case with all the articles of the convention that I was to present. We both agreed to send in separate cases and pool our information in such a manner where research could be made easier for both of us.

It was unfortunate that Sheffield used the very basis of my own presentation to the Commission from my case. The result was that the Commission received two cases that were very similar, but the circumstances were different. Therefore the ECHR decided to link the cases to be presented together.

I had already had knowledge of the existence of the Sempill affair, via April Ashley and her book " Aprils Odyssey ", and attempted to find the original birth registration through a journalist working for the Sunday Mirror. But no existence of any registration could be found. Then I asked Sheffield to search for this, as I was certain that it was there that the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle lay. At first Sheffield took no action and I persuaded her it was very important. What she uncovered from answers to letters sent to the Scottish registers made her realise that there was a link. The answers at first were denial of the existence of such a case. These answers could not be held as truthful as newspaper reports existed that recorded the event of the case. Persistence enabled the complete case to be extracted from the registers and copy of the birth certificate of Ewan Forbes-Sempill. No trace of the original could be found in the registers. It was clear that this had been destroyed.

4 Copy had also been uncovered of amended birth certificates of persons who could not be described as any other than what is known today as a person who is transsexual. All of the certificates had been amended prior to the judgement of Ormrod in the Corbett case. Copy of these amended birth certificates were seen by a worlds foremost expert on cases of inter-sex and the conclusions were that from the ages of these people they would be regarded by medical specialists as transsexual. It was also found, that there had been prior knowledge of these birth certificates by the plaintiffs of former cases that had gone to the ECHR. They were the cases of Rees and later Cossey. None of the fact that it was possible to amend a birth certificate, within existing statute law, was ever presented to the ECHR in those cases. They were based on a demand that the UK government must change the law. The court in those cases was not prepared to demand that a government must restructure its laws. Both cases lost and this created a case law in the ECHR upon which any further cases from the UK would be accepted and judged. The ECHR works on the basis of creating its own case law upon which to judge a case presented to them and where they have none they create it. If a case challenges existing case law, then the court can examine the situation.

What was presented to the ECHR was clearly a case where the law existed, and it was possible to amend a birth certificate in cases where medicine made the decision as to the true sex of an individual. The true situation in the UK was one, which the government, its officials and civil servants were adhering to corrupt legal practices whose birth arose out of wilful corruption of statute law of the land and the constitution. Its citizens were being deprived of the rights given in common law. The government had lied in previous cases presented to the ECHR and continued to lie in this case. They were also presented with prima facae evidence of proven scientific medical evidence that was accepted internationally of the biological foundation of the cause of a person being born transsexual. That this was an indisputable reality and therefore such individuals must be given the same rights and legal status of their true sex as other individuals are given.

The Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, decided, after examining all the evidence presented to them, that the Government of the United Kingdom was in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. For their persistent refusal to amend the birth certificates, of a few of its citizens, after medical specialists had decided that they were not of the sex that had been allocated to them at birth. And such persons had to undergo medical and surgical treatment to correct a mistake of nature. The United Kingdom Government were not prepared to accept this decision and decided to wait for a decision on the matter from the Court of Human Rights. Their reasoning was based on the previous judgements given in Rees and Cossey. That they were entitled to a wide margin of appreciation on the matter, irrespective of the fact that the judgements they were relying upon had been gained by lying to the Commission and Court at the time the cases had been presented.

In 1998 the Court of Human Rights decided in the negative and gave a judgement that was a reiteration of the previous judgements given in the Rees and Cossey cases. All the scientific evidence shown to them that was supported internationally was also rejected. In short the judgement was little more than an easy way out, as to have done other than that would have meant having to admit that they had made a wrong judgement in both the Rees and Cossey cases previously.

Known scientific research into the occurrence of the births of inter-sexes and their ratio in proportion to male and female populations are approximately 1: 50,000 females and 1: 20,000 males, will be an inter-sex. On that knowledge it is known that there are approximately 1, 750,000 inter-sexes in the world, of varying degrees. Most countries accept this occurring and re-define their legal sex status on birth certificates, even in the poorest third world countries. The sort of verdict that was given in Strasbourg in effect is saying that in their view such people do not have any legal right to their newly assigned sex status or recognition of it. Neither do such people have the right to demand recognition of it. Neither do they have rights of privacy as is afforded to other citizens, according to the Convention of Human rights, in that respect. In short a person who has been medically diagnosed as an inter-sex has no human rights. They have made it clear that they are not prepared to entertain further cases concerning this issue and that their case law, as created from the Rees and Cossey cases is to remain.

The reality of this situation is quite simple. Anyone who is born in the United Kingdom, and is a citizen of that country, that has been diagnosed as transsexual. Can be given all the medical and surgical help necessary, as is accorded to any other inter-sex condition. But they are not to be legally recognised as any other sex than the sex that has been allotted to them at birth, irrespective of the harmful and dangerous situation that they are being placed in legally and socially by such a refusal. The only document given to a person in this situation that records a new name, and purported sex, is a passport. This document by itself is not a true legal identification document of that person's status, as it does not have an amended birth certificate to give it legality. Therefore such a passport is questionable and has no legal validity, for complete identification for travel. The reality is, that it would be better to leave the passport identification as it was originally. As a passport that states another reality to the true legal reality places that person in a situation of furtiveness in whatever they may do in their life, placing them outside of the right to work, live and enjoy life as any other person is allowed. The only real way out for anyone in such a situation is either to leave their land of birth and place themselves at the mercy of a foreign government, who might provide them with a new nationality, birth certificate and identification documents. Or go into the nether world of the criminal element and buy a complete new identification, which could at any time be uncovered, and bring about a term of imprisonment for that person. A very daunting and unreasonable prospect imposed upon someone who has committed no crime, but was unfortunate to be born either completely male or female. Any country that treats its citizens in such a shabby and despicable way for something that they are not responsible for needs to be questioned by the international community. Especially when it demands of it's citizens to look to foreign governments to correct simple factual elements in that person's life regarding their legal status.

All the documents presented in the case of Rachel Horsham v The United Kingdom to the ECHR in Strasbourg can be viewed via the index page.