The Court of Justice ruled that European Union (EU) member states are required to recognize “gender identity” changes from other EU states.
“A Member State that does not permit recognition and entry in the birth certificate of a national of that Member State of a change of first name and gender identity lawfully acquired in another Member State, when exercising the right to free movement and residence, with the consequence that that person is obliged to initiate, before a court, new proceedings for a change of gender identity in the first Member State, which disregard the change that was previously lawfully acquired in that other Member State,” the ruling says.
“In that regard, it is irrelevant that the request for recognition and entry of the change of first name and gender identity was made in that first Member State on a date on which the withdrawal from the European Union of the other Member State had already taken effect,” it continues.
The decision comes as Romania refused to accept Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi’s gender changes after he moved to Britain when it was still part of the EU. Romania did not issue a new birth certificate or updated passport.
“Gender, like a first name, is a fundamental element of personal identity,” the Court said in a press release obtained by The Washington Post. “A divergence between identities resulting from such a refusal of recognition creates difficulties for a person in proving his or her identity in daily life as well as serious professional, administrative and private inconvenience.”
Similar to Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary do not permit changes to gender identity and name, raising questions as to whether such issues belong to individual member states or the European Union overall.
Catherine Barnard, an expert in E.U. law at the University of Cambridge, told The Post, “It goes to the issue of competence, meaning, does the E.U. have the power to have any say over these things? It’s like in the states: Is it a state issue? Or a federal issue? When it comes to anything that gets in the way of free movement, then the E.U. has the power.”
Rodrigo Ballester, head of the Center for European Studies at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium think tank in Budapest, called the ruling “legal nonsense to make gender delirium compulsory.
Ballester told The Telegraph that the Court’s “ultimate goal is not to enforce the law, but to force further investigation. Not to mention that it ignores Brexit as if it had never happened.”
“It is no longer judicial activism, it has become ideological crusading.”
