US EditionBlocking gender changes on IDs violates EU law, top court rules
The ECJ found that denying transgender people legal gender recognition restricts freedom of movement and requires all 27 EU states to have clear procedures, affecting countries like Bulgaria.
- On Thursday the European Court of Justice ruled that Bulgaria’s ban on changing birth-certificate gender markers breaches EU law and returned the case to the Bulgarian court that referred it.
- After her request was denied by Bulgarian authorities, Shipova, a Bulgarian trans woman who moved to Italy and began hormone therapy, challenged Bulgaria's 2023 Supreme Court ban on gender-marker changes.
- In September the European Court of Justice gave a non-binding opinion recommending Bulgaria issue documents reflecting a trans person's lived experience, and Advocate General Richard de la Tour wrote that such laws restrict EU rights.
- The ECJ found Shipova was exercising free movement rights and noted that mismatches between lived gender and identity documents hinder freedom of movement for persons whose lived gender differs from identity-data on documents.
- The decision positions freedom of movement to protect gender identity across the EU, obliging member states to adopt clear recognition procedures, conflicting with Bulgaria's 2023 Supreme Court ruling.
43 Articles
43 Articles
Those who change their gender in the EU also have a right to a corresponding entry in registers. This has now been decided by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). EU countries must therefore allow transpersons to adapt their identity cards. If data on gender in the identity card differs from the actually lived gender identity of a person, this could cause "significant inconvenience" in everyday life, the judges in Luxembourg reported. For exampl…
EU states must not block trans people’s right to accurate identity documents, rules Court of Justice
The ECJ spoke out after a case involving a Bulgarian trans woman living in Italy was denied recognition of her gender The post EU states must not block trans people’s right to accurate identity documents, rules Court of Justice appeared first on Attitude.
Controversial CJEU Ruling Pushes Gender Recognition on Member States
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday that national legislation preventing a citizen from amending gender data in official records after exercising the right to free movement violates EU law. With the ruling, the EU’s top court once again engaged in serious judicial activism, exerting EU powers in an area clearly under the authority of member states, with the possibility of serious confrontations with several EU cou…
The Bulgarian Cassation Tribunal had called on "the moral and religious values of society" to reject the request.
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