Germany paves way for ‘third gender’ option at birth

BERLIN: The German government on Wednesday approved a draft law allowing a third gender option on birth certificates for babies who are not distinctly male or female. Last November, the Federal Constitution Court ruled that Germans must be allowed to be entered in records as neither male nor female, saying the records must either eliminate the category of gender or create "another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female," AP reported. The ruling concluded a three-year legal battle involving an intersex person — someone whose sex characteristics do not fit standard definitions of either male or female — who used a karyotype analysis to prove that they had only one X chromosome but no other sex chromosome, a condition known as Turner Syndrome. The top court found that authorities could decide to do without any gender identity in civil registers or allow people in a similar situation to choose “another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female.”

READ MORE: B.C. As a consequence of the ruling, parents will now have the option to register their newborns as "diverse" instead of male or female, and adults can voluntarily opt to change their gender to diverse on their legal records. Franziska Giffey, Germany's Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and representative of the Social Democratic Party in the government's ruling coalition, said the ruling is "an important step toward the legal recognition of people whose gender identity is neither male nor female," Pink News reported. In neighboring Austria, the Constitutional Court ruled in June that authorities there must allow people to be entered in official records as something other than male or female if they so wish, but found no need to change that country's existing law since it doesn't specify explicitly that people's gender must be male or female.
The Cabinet of Germany approves a third gender option for official identification records. The change will come into force by the end of the year.