It is FALSE that trans children do not know their gender identity.
Gender identity is not a choice, nor a phase, nor a fad. It cannot be changed, nor is it imposed. Trans children know their identity.
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Trans children and their caregivers face constant social scrutiny that forces them to justify their gender identities. This situation is exacerbated by misinformation and myths spread by anti-rights groups. These groups have attempted to manipulate public perception against legal reforms in favor of trans rights.
Misinformation surrounding the identities of trans children is having a global impact. In countries like the United States and the United Kingdom policies and legal reforms are already in place that limit and deny their human rights.
In Latin America, these disinformation narratives are spread and promoted by far-right politicians and anti-rights groups. They use social media and media outlets to spread false ideas about what it means to guarantee human rights for trans children.
Globally, no gender identity law seeks to “mutilate,” “hormonalize,” or “operate” on trans girls, boys, and children.
According to the ILGA World database , Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile have regional guidelines, laws, or precedents that guarantee gender identity recognition for minors. In some cases, this is guaranteed administratively, in others through judicial means. In no case is medical or surgical certification or hormone treatment required.
Advisory Opinion 24/17 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ( IACHR ) holds that the recognition of the gender identity of transgender persons, both minors and adults, must be guaranteed without requiring them to prove medical or surgical interventions, hormonal treatments, or other procedures.
In Mexico, three states recognize the gender identity of trans children without age restrictions. And five states recognize children as young as 12.
Gender identity is not a decision
Representatives and anti-rights groups who oppose the human rights of trans children appeal to this argument: "They don't have the intellectual maturity to know who they are." "They're not old enough to decide," they argue, arguing that children have no agency over themselves and their gender identity.
Gender identity isn't a choice, a phase, or a fad. It can't be changed, nor is it imposed. In fact, you and the person sitting next to you both have a gender identity. Everyone has one, and we don't choose it; we simply live and express it.
- In Mexico, since 2017, the National Constitution recognizes gender identity as a right of all Mexicans.
- According to the National Population Council ( CONAPO ), of the 6.8 million adolescents between the ages of 13 and 14 living in Mexico, between 1.2% and 2.7% have a gender identity different from the one assigned to them at birth. This means that between 81,000 and 183,000 are trans adolescents.
- 62.4% of people realized before the age of 7 that their gender identity is different from the one assigned to them at birth, according to the National Survey on Sexual and Gender Diversity (ENDISEG, 2021 ).
- To date, 23 of Mexico's 32 states recognize the right to identity for trans people. However, only the states of Jalisco and Sinaloa guarantee this right without an age limit; and in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Morelos, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, it is available for trans people over 12 years of age. In no case is a psychiatric or medical certificate or hormonal treatment required to guarantee their right to identity.
The so-called "conversion therapies"
In Mexico, in 2023, representatives from the National Action Party (PNP), a party that in 2021 formed an alliance with Vox, the Spanish far-right party that opposes legislative advances in favor of the lives and rights of LGBTI+ people, presented initiatives in three states that seek to criminalize families and health professionals who accompany trans children in their gender affirmation processes.
Furthermore, whenever a reform is introduced that includes the right to identity for minors, misleading narratives emerge, claiming that it is mothers and fathers who "impose" a gender identity on their trans children.
As we explained previously, gender identity is not a choice. On the contrary, imposing, attempting to change, "correct," or repress the gender identity with which a person identifies would be engaging in ECOSIG or the misnamed conversion therapy , a practice classified by the UN as "torture."
The IACHR, in its 2015 report Violence against LGBTI+ persons in the Americas , has documented that ECOSIG occur in different forms, such as: coercion and lack of consent, illegal deprivation of liberty, verbal violence and threats, forced use of medications, rape, aversion therapies, electroshocks and/or exorcisms.
In Mexico, as of June 7, 2024, ECOSIG (Efforts to Correct Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity), falsely known as "conversion therapies," were banned at the federal level.
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