Official gender change will no longer require sterilization, the Constitutional Court has decided

CZECH REPUBLIC – Equality of human rights is not exactly an important political topic in the Czech Republic. In recent times, the public discussion has been primarily concerned with the fight for equal rights for lesbians and gays, i.e. the legalization of so-called marriage for all. It didn’t happen in the end, but trans people are currently receiving new attention. They have long sought to ensure that sterilization is not a condition for the formal recognition of gender change. According to the current decision of the Constitutional Court, it will be really necessary to change the existing legislation and thus eliminate another persistent discriminatory practice.

Gender change conditions

According to the still valid legislative regulations, trans people in the Czech Republic must undergo a procedure involving the removal of the genitals and the impossibility of reproduction in order for their gender change to be recorded in the documents. At the same time, many Western countries have already retreated from this practice. After all, e.g. the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the relevant UN committee, have drawn attention to the fact that the condition of sterilization of trans people is unacceptable and contrary to the protection of human rights. Specifically, the UN stated that this was a practice on the level of torture.

The Constitutional Court eventually came to a similar conclusion as the international human rights organization, based on the discussion of the proposal of a man who sought an official sex change. According to the decision of the Constitutional Court, the request regarding the removal of the genitals and sterilization is therefore a violation of human dignity, and the existing law prevents us from addressing individual cases. Judge reporter Jaromír Jirsa then directly called the current procedure drastic.

A step in the right direction

The Government Commissioner for Human Rights, Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková then welcomed the decision of the Constitutional Court. “It is an important landmark for setting up the protection of the dignity of the human rights of trans people in our country. It is also an important and strengthening appeal, which will hopefully also contribute to the fact that the prepared legislative change will soon reach the government and the changes will be approved as soon as possible.” she summed up. And she alluded to the fact that the enforceability is postponed by 1 year until 30/06/2025, so that the legislators have room to react and adopt a new regulation in accordance with the decision. This should be part of the amendment to the Civil Code, where today the condition of sterilization during official sex change is enshrined. The new amendment removes this condition from the law, stating that the opinion of experts – psychiatrists, sexologists – is sufficient for an official sex change. The Constitutional Court then also emphasized the need for the new law to ensure that “people do not change their status according to their mood.”

There is still room for improvement

The verdict of the Constitutional Court was also welcomed by representatives of the human rights organization Transparent, although they point out that foreign practice goes even further and that formal recognition of the transition does not even require expert recommendations. “In these cases, the international practice of democratic liberal states leads to self-identification. However, the debate on this topic is still a long way off here, although we should also go in this direction.” Daniel Zikmund summed it up for Transparent. This was finally confirmed by Šimáčková Laurenčíková. “I would very much like self-identification to be the key to the formal recognition of the transition, but the new legislation is still counting on some kind of recommendatory statement at the professional expert level,” she concluded.