Transgender persons suffered article 8 violations over name-change requirements

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of A.P., Garçon and Nicot v. France the court: by six votes to one, that there had been a violation of article 8 (right to respect for private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of E. Garçon and S. Nicot, on account of the obligation to establish the irreversible nature of the change in their appearance; by a majority, that there had been no violation of article 8 of the Convention in respect of E. Garçon on account of the obligation to prove that he actually suffered from gender identity disorder and in respect of A.P. on account of the obligation to undergo a medical examination.

The case concerned three transgender persons of French nationality who wished to change the entries concerning their sex and their forenames on their birth certificates, and who were not allowed to so do by the courts in France.

The applicants submitted, among other points, that the authorities had infringed their right to respect for their private life by making recognition of sexual identity conditional on undergoing an operation involving a high probability of sterility.

The court held, in particular, that making recognition of the sexual identity of transgender persons conditional on undergoing an operation or sterilising treatment to which they did not wish to submit amounted to making the full exercise of one’s right to respect for private life conditional on relinquishing full exercise of the right to respect for one’s physical integrity.