Tuesday, January 20, 2015

It Is Time To Change The Birth Certificate Laws!

For the states to change the way they change the gender marker on Birth Certificates…
Israel recognizes sex changes without operation
It will now be possible to change the gender designation on one's identity card without having sex reassignment surgery.
Haaretz
By Revital Hovel Jan. 18, 2015

The State Prosecution announced last week that it will now be possible to change the gender designation on one’s identity card without actually having a sex-change operation.

The response was given to a petition filed with the High Court of Justice by two transgender women against the Interior Ministry’s demand that they undergo sex-change surgery as a condition for altering the gender on their identity cards from male to female. Both were allowed to change their names on their identity cards, but not their gender designation.
[…]
Under the new procedure, the existing Health Ministry committee that approves sex-change operations will set the criteria for determining a non-surgical sex change and examine the changes an applicant has undergone without the surgery. Certification by the sex-change committee will be sufficient for changing one’s designation in the population registry.
The article goes on to point out that,
The petition compared the legal situation in Israel to that of other countries. In countries such as Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Finland, Switzerland (in the province of Zurich only), Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, and several U.S. states, one can change a gender designation on the basis of a declaration by a doctor or social worker that the applicant indeed identifies as the opposite sex.
[…]
U.S. states that do not require a surgical procedure include Alaska, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia. In June 2010, the U.S. State Department announced that surgery would no longer be required to change the gender on one’s passport, and that a physician’s declaration would suffice.
It’s time Connecticut and the other states modernize their vital records laws.

No comments:

Post a Comment