Trans Community Wins Major Victory In France

"Today, we celebrate...in hopes that [this] marks the beginning of recognizing the fundamental human rights of trans people."

From: NewNowNext

 Following a vote held in July by the National Assembly, trans individuals in France will now have the right to legally change their gender status without first having to undergo psychiatric evaluations, gender reassignment surgery or sterilization.

The vote, which still needed to be passed by the French Senate, ensures that trans people will be able to legally express their true gender identities, as long as they can prove “by an adequate combination of facts that their legal gender status does not match their lived gender.”

According to the new amendment, individuals can verify their lived gender by providing evidence of how they interact in their social, family and work environments through photographs or written testimonials. This evidence can be supplied not only by adults, but also emancipated minors.

Though many French LGBT activists were hoping for the assembly to approve language that would allow trans people to self-certify their gender identities, the vote is still being regarded as an important step forward for the community as it eliminates the dangerous medicalization of identity.

In a statement written on behalf of LGBT umbrella organization Inter-LGBT, spokesperson Clémence Zamora-Cruz writes, “Today, we celebrate this tremendous victory in hopes that it marks the beginning of recognizing the fundamental human rights of trans people that have for too long been denied.”

The statement goes on to read that the organization hopes that when the amendment goes to the Senate in September for a vote, lawmakers will open the procedure of changing genders to all young persons and consider removing judges entirely from the process.