People in Switzerland will soon be able to change their legal gender from January 1. The nation is going to be at the forefront of the self-identification movement with this new order. Here’s all you need to know.
Legal gender change in Switzerland is now simple
Switzerland is joining Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, and Norway as one of the new European nations to allow people to change their legal gender easily. The process no longer requires complex and tedious medical diagnosis, hormone therapy, evaluation, or bureaucratic procedures. According to the new rules in Switzerland’s civil codes, anyone above the age of 16 and not under legal guardianship can adjust their legal gender and name. The change requires a self-declaration at a civil registry office. However, younger people and those under adult protection need their guardian’s consent.
Switzerland’s new rule is a huge change from the current rules where a medical professional needs to confirm a person’s transgender identity. Moreover, some autonomous regions need an individual to undergo anatomical transition or hormone treatment to legally change their gender. However, for a legal name change proof stating that the new name was unofficially used for several years.
Decoupling gender and medical treatments
For a long time, Switzerland was known as a conservative front. However, the nation voted for legalizing civil marriage in September 2021. The nation was also one of the last Western EU nations to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. With the new change in gender, Switzerland is joining about two dozen other nations across the world. The move aims at decoupling gender choice in medical procedures. So far several European nations including Denmark, France, and Greece have removed the need for medical procedures such as sex reassignment, psychiatric evaluation, and surgery for gender changes.
Recently in June 2021, Spain approved a draft bill allowing anyone above the age of 14 to legally change their genders without hormone or medical therapies. In 2018, Germany became the first European nation to introduce a third gender option. However, the nation also shot down two bills aiming to provide self-identification options in 2021. However, two newly elected transgender members of the German parliament are hoping to change this.