Transgender EuroStudy – Legal Survey and Focus ... - ILGA Europe

Transgender EuroStudy:
Legal Survey and Focus on the
Transgender Experience of Health Care
countries phalloplasty surgery is very minimal and purely cosmetic, whereas in others such as Belgium
and the Netherlands the surgery is extensive and produces a functional phallus through which
ordinary standing urination is possible.
The Availability of Public
Documentation Changes
Changing names and documents other than
birth certificates
In seven (7) countries 39 it is possible for a trans person to change their legal name to a new legal
name that is more appropriate to their new gender, without any legal obstruction. In another eight (8)
countries a person can only change their name after they have undergone some medical intervention.
In Finland, France, Hungary and the Netherlands this intervention consists of a simple mental health
evaluation to discover whether the person has a gender identity disorder. In Italy, Portugal, Spain and
Sweden this includes treatment up to and including surgery to alter secondary sex characteristics.
As for other documents, an even larger number of countries – thirteen (13) – require treatment up to and
including surgery to alter secondary sex characteristics, of these Finland, Germany, Lithuania and Sweden
require treatment up to and including treatment to render permanent sterility. Stephen Whittle wrote that:
“any requirement of compulsory sterility for legal recognition of the new gender status could not
be imposed equitably. To do so would coerce transsexual people with poor health to undertake
inappropriate and even dangerous surgical procedures. Further it would be contrary to the principles of
human rights... excluding from parenthood a set of people because they have certain characteristics
which have no relevance to their ability to be a good parent must be outlawed because it runs counter
to the dignity of human beings, who are unique, free and responsible for their actions”. 40
Policing trans people to prevent their access to parenting would be extremely difficult in
practice, transsexual people have always found ways of living in their new gender role including the
raising of children. We can already see this in the number of trans people from all walks of life who
already care for children.
The legal requirement of sterility is an abuse that must be denounced in the strongest terms. It
is particularly disturbing as it echoes back to the eugenics theories and practices of the late 1930s to
the 1970s worldwide, but most notably in Europe.
39
Belgium, Estonia,
Ireland, Malta, Slovakia
and Slovenia and
United Kingdom.
40
Press for Change
report in: Home Office
(2000) The
Interdepartmental
Working Group Report
on Transsexual People,
London: Home Office,
HMSO.
Changing birth certificates
Among the fifteen (15) countries for which we have information, it is possible in thirteen (13)
States to have a birth certificate issue recording new details relating to the new gender. Most States
have complex requirements before a new birth certificate is granted, which include gender
reassignment surgeries. The UK and Spain are exceptions in that requirements are very liberal. Genital
surgery is not a pre-requisite for a new birth certificate. They require nothing more than a mental
health evaluation showing the person has gender dysphoria and a period of two (2) years living
permanently in the new gender role.