BFF-03 Portugal parliament approves new gender change law

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ZCZC

BFF-03

PORTUGAL-GENDER-POLITICS

Portugal parliament approves new gender change law

LISBON, July 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The Portuguese parliament on Thursday
approved a law that will allow citizens to change their gender and name from
the age of 16 without a medical report showing “identity disruption”.

Portugal joins Denmark, Malta, Sweden, Ireland and Norway to become “the
sixth European country to grant the right to self-determination of
transgender identity… without the guardianship of a third party and without
a diagnosis of identity disruption,” said Sandra Cunha, a lawmaker from the
Left Bloc.

“Nobody needs a third party to know if they are a man or a woman, a boy or
a girl,” she argued in the parliamentary debate ahead of the vote.

The change of gender and name will, however, remain independent from any
possible sex change operation.

A law in force since 2011 required transgender citizens to have a medical
diagnosis that established gender dysphoria — when gender does not
correspond to biological sex.

The new law must now be signed off by the conservative President Marcelo
Rebelo de Sousa, who vetoed the first version of the text adopted by
parliament in mid-April.

The head of state wanted a medical report requirement for cases involving
minors aged 16 to 18 to back their decision.

He was nevertheless in favour of the principle of no longer considering
transgender identity as “an abnormal pathology or mental situation”.

The part of the law concerning minors was therefore amended and a medical
report “which attests exclusively to the capacity of decision and informed
will, without reference to a diagnosis of gender identity” will be required.

The law passed on Thursday also prohibits surgical procedures on inter-sex
babies, who are born with male and female reproductive organs, so that they
can themselves choose their gender later in life.

BSS/AFP/MRI/0813 hrs