GATE joins today the annual observance of the International Day of Families; whose 2018 theme is Families and inclusive societies. It affirms the role of family and family policies in advancing Sustainable Development Goal 16 on Promoting peaceful and inclusive societies.
For many trans and gender diverse people around the world, social inclusion is still a goal to be achieved, as many families including trans and gender diverse children, adolescents and/or adults still face stigma, discrimination and violence. In many other cases, trans and gender diverse people are deprived from their very right to found a family. We call today for a long overdue end to sterilization as a requirement for legal gender recognition. The Yogyakarta Principles and Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 provide some guidance on how to achieve this.
Principle 31 on the right to legal gender recognition states that, while sex or gender continues to be registered, States must ensure that no eligibility criteria, such as medical or psychological interventions shall be a prerequisite to change one’s name, legal sex or gender. Principle 32 states the right to bodily and mental integrity. States must act to protect the rights of all persons to found a family, and to bodily integrity – no person should be forced to undergo any medical procedure in order to have their gender identity legally recognized.
Additional obligations pertaining to Principle 24 on the right to found a family requires States to enable access to methods to preserve fertility, which would include banning forced sterilization as a requirement for legal gender recognition. In addition, parents must be given the right to have their self-defined gender identity listed on the birth certificate of their children.
GATE reiterates its call to States, official institutions and allies in all movements and professional fields, to recognize, defend and promote the right of trans and gender diverse people to found a family and to be recognized, both within that family structure and in society as a whole, as their self-defined gender identity.
In solidarity,
The GATE Team
