Transgender Romanians who want to update their identifying documents do not need to undergo sex reassignment surgery, Europe’s human rights court ruled.
A girl takes part in a gay rights demonstration in Bucharest, Romania, in September 2018. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
STRASBOURG, France (CN) Europe’s top rights court held Tuesday that Romania violated the human rights of two transgender men by requiring sex reassignment surgery before recognizing their gender identity.
The European Court of Human Rights found that requiring the men to undergo surgery before legally changing their gender violated their right to privacy.
“The national courts placed the applicants…in an impossible dilemma: either to undergo this intervention despite their own wishes … or renounce the recognition of their gender identity,” the Strasbourg-based court wrote in an opinion that has only been released in French.