While Ms. Farmer has always identified herself as a woman, the defense fund took up the case because it touched upon many issues that transgender people commonly face and could set an interesting legal precedent, representatives of the group said.
As the central bank has been offering loans of shorter duration, some of the funds taken up Wednesday will simply replace those loans.
The other big area both of spending and of disproportionate abuse concerns cohesion funds, taking up 27% or almost €35bn of the budget last year and going mainly, though not only, to the poorer countries of eastern Europe.
Its stake in the lender has now fallen from 100% to below 30% after bondholders including US hedge funds took up the majority of shares as part of a rescue plan.
On other fronts, the European Union is expected to propose a new tariff on bananas tomorrow, and the International Monetary Fund will take up the question of Zimbabwe's arrears on Friday.
But well placed observers believe that contract would not stand up to a legal challenge - and that anyway no director has access to enough funds to take up what would be a share sale measured in tens of millions of pounds.
Part of the problem with the low fuel hardship fund take-up, says Tony Herbert, policy officer at Citizens Advice, is that gas providers are under no obligation to offer the cash, and hence only have a limited pot.
Happily, so-called front-end load funds, which could take up to 8% of an investor's capital at the start, are less common than they once were.
If it is funded, I will take up a position in the department.
But ministers say that too many companies are planning to build "solar farms", where fields are filled with solar panels, which would take up funds intended for households.
"The government and the Bank of England should make a more aggressive effort to get lenders to take up funds, and promote the scheme," he says.
