They are appealing to the courts against the non-recognition of transvestite femininity in their national identity document.

The appeal was filed with the Gala G of the National Civil Appeals Court.

December 26, 2019

Argentine trans activist Lara Bertolini, accompanied by lawyer Alejandra Gils Carbó and lawyer Emilio Buggiani, today filed an extraordinary appeal with the aim of having her identity recorded in both her ID card and birth certificate: 'transvestite femininity'.

“The appeal was filed with Chamber G of the National Civil Appeals Court. The next steps are for Chamber G to admit the extraordinary appeal and for the case file to be sent to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation for review,” Buggiani told Presentes.

“Currently, the failure to fully recognize non-binary identities, specifically transvestite and transgender identities, condemns them to live in a social underworld, far removed from any possibility of accessing basic rights. This situation demonstrates a disregard for the fact that the principle of human dignity is based on the recognition of identities in all their multiplicity,” Bertolini said today in a statement.

In March of this year, the trans activist achieved a landmark ruling : that the expression "transvestite femininity" be entered in the field designated for sex on her national identity document (DNI). This decision, approved by Judge Myriam Cataldi of the National Civil Court No. 7, was appealed by the National Registry of Persons (RENAPER), which refused to open a new field, arguing that "there are only two sexes." As a result, on December 10, the Civil Chamber denied the ruling that would have allowed Bertolini to access her identity on both her identity document and her birth certificate.

That is why today she appeared before the court again in what Lara Bertolini recognizes as a second stage of this historical process of struggle against the administrative resistance of the State to recognize and register the self-perceived identities of people as established by the Gender Identity Law No. 23592.

“This presentation, which aims to reach the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, is another chapter in the struggle over the issue of identity, which is foundational in the Argentine historical process: from the identities of the working people; of the disappeared children and grandchildren claimed by mothers and grandmothers as a result of the nefarious military dictatorship; reaching today this culminating point regarding the human right to gender identity, as part of a new social process,” Bertolini stated today in the press release announcing the continuation of this process.

Buggiani told this publication that the ruling violates the constitutional right to equality and non-discrimination. Furthermore, it disregards the human right to identity, since "gender identity is also part of a person's identity." She added that the judges' decision ignores the final article of the Gender Identity Law, which establishes that no law can override the recognition of the human right to gender identity.

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