Supreme Court ruled in support of name change of trans person

Chile’s Supreme Court approved a trans woman’s name and sex change after a four-year wait, and that the rectification be denied in the first instance and by the Appeals Court. This is a landmark ruling because the Supreme Court recognizes the identity as a right, quoting international agreement on human rights despite of the lack of a national law stablished.

The Adriana’s case marks a before and an after on legal issues. Adriana is a special education teacher of 30 years old who lives in Osorno and the Court accepted the change of sex and name despite of there isn’t a legislation on this subject, recognizing that the identity is a personal and intimate feeling of each one without either a hormonal treatment nor surgery.

Adriana shows her identity 11 years ago and 4 years ago she started the procedures to amend her name, which was rejected because for not having undergone a sex reassignment surgery. OTD interviewed her, she doesn’t assimilate the importance of her case. “I feel weird, I’m not content, I feel disappointed because it was too much time” explains. The last year she concretes her sex reassignment surgery, she even went to the Forensic Medical Service in order to obtain a certificate that recognized the intervention of her gender expression.

“This comes too late” she said. Her name doesn’t reflect her gender identity and she couldn’t work as a professional. For other side, she has had to face a lot of situations of violence and discrimination. Today, she waits for the change to amend the name of her professional title. “I hope this happened to me is something favourable the law to pass and to make the cumbersome procedures shorten”

The ruling reveals that the State of Chile, subscribing agreements on human rights issues, it has an obligation of respect the identity rights. Besides, this is a signal to the other members of the State that when they analyse the normative, they make sure that the standard is obeyed”, explains de attorney of the case and teacher of University of Chile, Lorena Lorca.

Furthermore, this case becomes an example for hundreds of people that still in the process of birth rectification for they gender identity.” The rulings of the Supreme Court are an important background for other ongoing cases because the judges will have a ruling as a reference that it can be useful”, explains the attorney.

Franco Fuica, OTD president, felt sorry for the long wait of Adriana. “This situation presents a wider precedent that allows set up, on legal cases, that surgeries cannot be a condition to recognize the gender identity of a transgender person”, said. “We hope that this can be useful to discuss the Gender Identity Law, where it is stablished that either a certificate or a surgery is necessary to recognize it, our identity cannot be measure”.

Translation: Javiera Saavedra R.