The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found Romania in breach of right to respect for private and family life after it refused to recognise the identities of two Romanian nationals, X and Y, because they had chosen not to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
One of the applicants, X, launched a court application against Bucharest’s first district, which had refused to change his gender from female to male despite having presented three medical certificates that confirmed he suffered from a gender identity disorder.
The court refused the applications on the basis that the change of gender was premature, as X had not undergone gender reassignment surgery. Higher courts upheld the judgement. X moved to Britain in 2014 and obtained male forenames by deed poll. It was X’s argument that requiring proof of surgery before authorising changes to civil-status records amounted to an unjustified interference with the exercise of sexual autonomy and with respect for the individual’s physical integrity.
The same judicial reasoning was used when the courts refused to allow the second applicant, Y, to change gender from female to male. This refusal led Y to undergo reassignment surgery in 2017. The following year, Y was issued with a new Romanian identity card giving his gender as male.
Before the ECtHR, the applicants argued with respect to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that Romania had not established a clear framework for the legal recognition of gender reassignment and the current procedure, which required surgery before any changes would be made to civil statuses, breached the right to respect for their private life.
In finding that Romania had violated the applicants’ Article 8 rights, the Court said: “[T]he national courts had presented the applicants, who did not wish to undergo gender reassignment surgery, with an impossible dilemma: either they had to undergo the surgery against their better judgement... or they had to forego recognition of their gender identity.”
The Court ordered Romania to pay a total of nearly €26,000 in moral and nonpecuniary damage, costs, and expenses.
To read the press release, click here.