#Argentina: Civil Registry issues new birth certificates for children of trans people

A second case has been registered in Buenos Aires without going through the courts. A trans man was able to change the birth certificates of his two children to reflect his new name.

January 24, 2017

The second case has already been registered in Buenos Aires without going through the courts. A trans man was able to change his two children's birth certificates to reflect his new name. In 2012, the Gender Identity Law 26.743 established that "every person may request the rectification of their sex and the change of their first name and image when they do not coincide with their self-perceived gender identity," which meant that the Civil Registry had to modify that information. In this case, this meant issuing new birth certificates for the children of trans people who had changed their identity documents. The director of the Buenos Aires Civil Registry, Mariano Cordeiro, told the newspaper Página/12 that the first change was made in December, but that the person involved "did not want it to be publicized." This case “set a unique precedent in the registry agency”, after the birth of his children, since the petitioner –who already has an identity document in accordance with his self-perceived gender identity– “made the registration rectification of his sex and first name, so that in the birth certificates the name of one of the parents appeared different from the one that corresponded”.

[READ ALSO: #Argentina: progress and shortcomings of the trans employment quota ]

Four years after the enactment of the Gender Identity Law, more than ten thousand trans people have already accessed the change of name and registered sex on the DNI throughout the country, according to data from the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals (FALGBT).

The Gender Identity Law guaranteed the right to self-perceived identity through administrative rectification of the national identity document, as well as comprehensive healthcare, including access to "total and partial surgical interventions and/or comprehensive hormonal treatments to align their body, including their genitalia, with their self-perceived gender identity, without requiring judicial or administrative authorization." Its approval represented a milestone, as it was the first law in the world that did not require medical or psychiatric diagnoses, nor surgical interventions, to access this right.

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