Germany must legally recognise 'third gender' from birth, top court rules

New York, America’s largest and one of its most liberal cities, a year ago issued the first United States birth certificate marked “intersex”. And earlier this year, California became the second USA state (after New York) to allow state residents who don’t identify as male or female to change their birth certificates to match their gender identity. So intersex people would have features that are neither wholly female nor wholly male, or a combination or neither. A German government spokesperson confirmed that the government would comply with the ruling. The court added that current regulations on civil status were discriminatory against those who identified as intersex and asked for the category to be called either “inter” or “various”. It would make Germany the first European country to offer intersex people the choice of identifying as neither male nor female. Activist group “Third Option” described the ruling as a “small revolution”. The minister for families in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s outgoing government, Katarina Barley, said a third gender option was ‘overdue’. The law prevents parents from making hasty decisions on controversial genital surgeries for their newborns. Several lower courts had ruled against a bid for gender change to “inter” or “various” on the official document. Intersex traits can be “visible at birth” while in others “they are not apparent until puberty”, the agency says. Germany has joined the ranks of countries that now officially recognize a so-called “third sex”. In January Belgian model Hanne Gaby Odiele revealed that she was intersex, saying she hoped that it would “break the taboo”. The person in question then to the challenge to a German high court, who ruled that the government would have to introduce new regulations so that an intersex gender option would be available on all official documents.]]>