Statement from GATE - Global Action for Trans* Equality

Abstract

A week ago Malta passed the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics (GIGESC) Act, which encompasses, in a new and radical combination, legal recognition, protection and anti-discrimination measures. The Act approved by parliamentary consensus on April 1st joins a growing number of similar laws that define gender identity issues as human rights issues – notably following the Yogyakarta Principles and the example posed by the Gender Identity Law passed in Argentina in 2012. Recently, Mexico and Denmark introduced new provisions similarly granting access to legal recognition in accordance with those human rights standards. Hopefully, the Maltese Act will open the way for legal change in countries such as Chile and Ireland, where gender identity laws are being debated, and will also challenge persistent requirements that violate human rights, such as forced divorce, sterilization and psychiatric diagnoses. In this sense, the Maltese GIGESC Act contributes significantly to support trans* depathologization in the context of the revision and reform process of the International Classification of Diseases at the World Health Organization – demonstrating, once again, that pathologization can no longer be justified using outdated legal imperatives. By introducing explicit provisions on grounds of “sex characteristics” in anti-discrimination, the Act follows the example settled by Australia, the first country in the world to establish “intersex status” as an independent protected ground. The Maltese Act goes further, introducing a radical change to other gender identity laws – and to any other human rights legislation – in recognising a right to ‘bodily integrity and physical autonomy’ as an integral part of the Right to Gender Identity [3(d)]. In