Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2005:787
Date: 2005-12-15
Language of the case: English
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Social Policy
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: United Kingdom

summary of the relevant legislation. 10 – A woman born on or before 5 April 1950 attains pensionable age at 60 and a woman born on or after 6 April 1955 at 65. There is a sliding scale for women born between those dates. 11 – Cited in footnote 9. 12 – Paragraphs 71, 76 and 103. 13 – Paragraph 7(2) contains a mirror-image provision dealing with the position of female-to-male transsexual persons. 14 – Case C-13/94 [1996] ECR I-2143. 15 – Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions (OJ 1976 L 39, p. 40). 16 – Paragraphs 17 to 22. 17 – Case C-117/01 [2004] ECR I-541. 18 – Council Directive 75/117/EEC of 10 February 1975 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women (OJ 1975 L 45, p. 19) (‘the Equal Pay Directive’). 19 – Paragraph 36 and operative part. 20 – Cited in footnote 14. 21 – Cited in footnote 17. 22 – Cited in footnote 15. 23 – Paragraph 21. 24 – [2005] 1 AC 51. 25 – See the opinion of Baroness Hale, and in particular paragraphs 56 to 58. 26 – Paragraph 31. 27 – See Case C-9/91 Equal Opportunities Commission [1992] ECR I-4297, paragraph 13. 28 – Case 71/85 Federatie Nederlands Vakbeweging [1986] ECR 3855, paragraph 18. 29 – Case C-328/91 Thomas [1993] ECR I-1247, paragraph 8. 30 – See most recently Case C-209/03 Bidar [2005] ECR I-0000, paragraph 69. 31 – See the United Kingdom Home Office Report of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Transsexual People (April 2000), referred to in Goodwin, paragraph 87. 32 – See footnote 10. 33 – According to the MISSOC (Mutual information system on social protection) tables Social Protection in the Member States of the European Union, of the European Economic Area and in Switzerland (2004) published by the Commission, in Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Sweden the retirement ages for men and women are the same. Advocate General Ruiz-Jarabo in his Opinion in KB notes that before the 2004 enlargement all the Member States apart from the United Kingdom and Ireland permitted amendment of birth records after gender reassignment surgery (see point 28 of the Opinion). The European Court of Human Rights in Goodwin, cited in footnote 9, noted that out of 37 Member States of the Council of Europe only four did not permit such amendment (see paragraph 55 of the judgment). Those four are Albania, Andorra, Ireland and the United Kingdom.