People in Switzerland will be able to legally change gender by self-declaration at the civil registry office from 1 January 2022.
The move puts the country among just a handful in Europe to grant legal weight to gender self-identification. Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Norway are the only other nations on the continent that allow a person to legally change gender without hormone therapy, medical diagnosis, or further evaluation or bureaucracy.
Under the new rules written into Switzerland’s civil code, anyone aged 16 and above, and who is not under legal guardianship, can change their gender and legal name by self-declaration at the civil registry office.
Younger people and those under adult protection will require guardian consent.
Under previous rules, the process of legally changing gender was different depending on which region of the country you were in.
Some regions would require a certificate from a medical professional confirming an individual’s transgender identity.
Others would require a person to undergo hormone treatment to legally change gender, and some asked for proof that the person’s new name had already been in use unofficially for several years.
While some other European nations, including Denmark, France and Greece, have removed the requirement of medical procedures – such as sex reassignment surgery – their rules require further steps or conditions.
In June, the Spanish government approved the draft of a bill that would allow anyone over the age of 14 to change gender legally without a medical diagnosis or hormone therapy.
In the UK, a new report from the cross-party group of MPs, the Women and Equalities Committee, said this week that transgender people should be allowed to declare their own gender without “unfair and overly-medicalised” scrutiny.
They argued that transgender people should no longer be required to have a gender dysphoria diagnosis from doctors in order to have their gender legally recognised.
Proposals had been developed under Theresa May’s government to allow people to self-identify by signing a statutory declaration, and without having to provide evidence of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. However the plan was later scrapped.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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