Colombia allows trans people to declare their own gender
By Will Stroude
The Colombian government has announced that trans people will be able to declare their own gender on government documentation without the requirement of physical and mental medical examinations, after officials declared such exams “profoundly invasive of privacy rights”.
The new rules have been brought into effect immediately after the country’s ministers of justice and interior signed an executive order on June 5, Gay Star News reports.
Once changed, a person’s offical sex cannot be changed back within ten years – and can only be changed twice in their lifetime.
“Judges used to order bodily inspections to determine if people had physically changed their sex, or demanded a psychiatric exam to know if the applicant had gender dysphoria,” Justice Minister Yesid Reyes said.
“Both exams were profoundly invasive of privacy rights and were rooted in unacceptable prejudice. The construction of sexual and gender identity is an issue that doesn’t depend on biology.”
Colombia becomes just the fourth country to allow gender changes to be registered this way, after Argentina, Denmark and Malta.
The news comes just over a week since the Irish government announced that they would move towards accepting self-declaration for the purpose of updating passports, driving licences, obtaining a new birth cert, and getting married.
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