Image copyright Getty Images Image caption LGBT activists have welcomed the new law (file photo)

Portugal's parliament has approved a new law making it easier for people to change their legal gender.

Citizens from the age of 16 will now be able to change their gender and name in documents without the need of a medical report.

Activists welcomed the "groundbreaking" law, saying it respected the right of self-determination.

Critics were against allowing changes without a medical report and lowering the minimum age, currently at 18.

Lawmakers celebrated the vote of approval - by 109 votes in the 230-seat parliament - with a standing ovation.

Isabel Moreira, an MP from the Socialist Party, called this a "historic day that honours every trans person and their families".

Vânia Dias da Silva, from the right-wing party CDS-PP, which opposed the bill, said: "We disagree with this law. [Those who are] 16 years old can't marry, drink, or drive, so they shouldn't be able to make a decision with such definite and serious consequences."

For those aged between 16 or 18, the change of gender will need to be approved by their parents or legal representatives.

Under the old law, those wanting to change their gender on official documents had to present a medical report and be at least 18 years old.

A tradition of liberal liberties

By Mia Alberti, Lisbon

Until 2011 Portugal had no legislation regarding the recognition of transgender identity. Back then to legally change their identity, transgender people had to be sterilised and sue the state for wrongful attribution of identity. That year Portugal approved the current Gender Law, widely celebrated by LGBT activists.

Since then, 485 people have changed their legal name and gender, according to the Ministry of Justice. There is no data on how many transgender teenagers are in Portugal. However, Zélia Figueiredo, a psychiatrist and expert in sexology, says the transgender teens seeking her "are increasingly younger".

The Gender Law follows a number of other liberal law changes that have reshaped the social landscape in Portugal: drug decriminalisation (2001), same-sex marriage (2010), same-sex adoption (2016) and surrogacy (2016).

The legalisation of the medicinal use of marijuana and euthanasia are already scheduled for debate in parliament.

Katrin Hugendubel of ILGA-Europe, an LGBT rights advocacy group, said: "People will be able to change their legal gender through a procedure based on self-determination.

"This means that the law finally recognises and respects that trans people themselves know best who they are and how they identify."

Only five other European countries have a model based on self-determination, according to the group: Malta, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium.

In the UK, individuals need to be 18 years old to require a legal change of their gender, a process that can take up to five years and requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a psychiatrist.

The new Portuguese legislation also outlaws unnecessary surgery on intersex children.

It now needs to be signed by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to come into effect. </s> LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Transgender people in Portugal will no longer need to be diagnosed as mentally ill to change their gender legally, after parliament approved a law on Friday that also bans unnecessary surgery on intersex infants.

Several European nations require transgender people to undergo medical procedures such as surgery and sterilization, be diagnosed with a mental disorder, and get divorced if married to have their desired gender legally recognized by government.

The law makes Portugal only the sixth European nation to allow a change of gender without medical or state intervention, according to ILGA-Europe, a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) groups.

It follows Malta, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium.

People who are transgender do not identify with the gender they were born as, while intersex people have ambiguous genitalia that are not considered typically male or female.

“When trans people are trusted to take decisions for themselves, it signals respect (and) procedures are simplified,” said Transgender Europe’s senior policy officer Richard Kohler.

“It enables anyone who needs legal gender recognition to quickly get through with this bureaucratic step and continue with their lives,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The law also means Portugal will become only the second nation in the world, after Malta, to ban medically unnecessary surgery on the genitals of intersex infants, activists said.

About 1.7 percent of the world’s population, or 129 million people, is thought to be born intersex, the United Nations says.

Doctors often perform surgery to “masculinize” or “feminize” the genitalia of intersex babies aged 2 or under in the belief it will make their lives easier and to ease parental distress.

Yet it can cause life-long pain, sterilization, loss of sexual sensation and health complications, campaigners say.

Rights groups such as Organisation Intersex International (OII) and StopIGM.org said Portugal’s new law was insufficient.

Parents could circumvent the legislation and have surgeries performed on their children by claiming they were confident of their gender identity, said Kitty Anderson, co-chair of OII.

“The law ... doesn’t explicitly prohibit intersex genital mutilation (IGM), nor criminalize or adequately sanction IGM, nor address obstacles to access to justice and redress for IGM survivors,” said Daniela Truffer, co-founder of StopIGM.org. </s> BERLIN — Germany's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a third gender option for official records that will allow people to be registered as "diverse," complying with a ruling from the country's highest court.

In November, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that people must be allowed to be entered in records as neither male nor female, ordering authorities either to create a third identity or scrap gender entries altogether.

It ruled on a case in which a plaintiff sought unsuccessfully to have their entry in the birth register changed from "female" to "inter/diverse" or "diverse." Until now, the only other option was to leave the gender blank.

During a three-year legal battle, the plaintiff provided a genetic analysis showing one X chromosome but no second sex chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y chromosome. The top court found that authorities could decide to do without any gender identity in civil registers or allow people in a similar situation to choose "another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female."

Wednesday's Cabinet decision to add a third gender option, "diverse," to the register of births requires parliamentary approval.

The center-left minister for families in Germany's conservative-led coalition government, Franziska Giffey, said it is "an important step toward the legal recognition of people whose gender identity is neither male nor female."

However, advocacy groups and some opposition politicians said it didn't go far enough.

"Why should you produce a doctor's certificate to change your civil status?" opposition Green party lawmakers Sven Lehmann and Monika Lazar asked in a joint statement. "That must be a self-determined decision that is open to all."

In neighboring Austria, the Constitutional Court ruled in June that authorities there must allow people to be entered in official records as something other than male or female if they so wish.

However, it found no need to change that country's existing law since it doesn't specify explicitly that people's gender must be male or female.

FOLLOW NBC OUT ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM </s> Parliament this evening approved the introduction of gay marriage through the new Marriage Equality Act with Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo voting against.

Malta became the 15th EU state to introduce same-sex marriage, just six years after the introduction of divorce.

Clarifying his vote, Mr Vassallo said he could not reconcile his principles with a Bill that was "immoral".

Photo: Sarah Carabott

Although he agreed that the state and church should be separate, he said he was a Christian and could not abandon his religious beliefs on parliament's doorstep.

All other MPs voted in favour.

Earlier, the Prime Minister had said that this was a historic moment and invited all

MPs to stand up and declare their vote. This proposal was not taken up by the Opposition, and a vote viva voce was taken.

Video: Mark Zammit Cordina

Dr Muscat said the vote showed that society had reached "an unprecedented level of maturity. We can all say we are equal."

In a statement, the government said that the aim of the law was to modernise marriage law through the mainstreaming of equality for all.This means that the institution of marriage is now fully gender neutral to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and genderqueer (LGBTIQ) persons are free to contract a marriage with their loved ones, be they of the same or a different sex, and also to parent children without having unnecessary references to their gender or biological make-up on their children’s birth certificates.

The institution of marriage was now fully gender neutral to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and genderqueer persons were free to contract a marriage with their loved ones, be they of the same or a different sex, and also to parent children without having unnecessary references to their gender or biological make-up on their children’s birth certificates.

It also meant that all discrepancies between husband and wife had now been removed. Both were now free to adopt or take on their partner’s surname without distinction. Their siblings would then take on the family surname that the couple chose on their marriage day.

During the process towards the adoption of the Bill, a lot of the discussion centred on whether it was necessary to convert civil marriage to a fully gender-neutral institution.

The government insisted that this was necessary to respect the anti-discrimination provisions in the country’s Constitution adopted in 2014 relative to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Additionally, the government indicated that both the Civil Unions Act, and the Cohabitation Act adopted in 2014 and 2016 respectively were both gender neutral, and that marriage should not be an exception.

As the vote was being taken, people gathered at Castille Square, where the stage was set for celebrations. Auberge de Castille was later lit up in rainbow colours and sported the words "We made history" as fireworks lit the sky.

Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi, Reuters

Those gathered cheered as Dr Muscat and Civil Rights Minister Helena Dalli approached Castille just before 9pm.

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said it welcomed this evening's vote as a step forward towards equality in Maltese society. It said the PN parliamentary group voted in favour of the law at all stages as Opposition leader Simon Busuttil had said.

Dr Busuttil thanked PN MPs for their vote and loyalty to the party.

"I understand there were a number of MPs who had objections to parts of the law but who still voted in favour in loyalty to the party's position and for the sake of party unity. I appreciate this and thank them for it."

The PN had been updating its policy to better reflect Maltese society today for the past years and had even voted in favour of the Gender Identity Bill.

It noted that although the law approved today had introduced the possibility of marriage between same-sex couples, this right has in practice been in existence for the past three years when civil unions were introduced.

Photo: Sarah Carabott

In another statement, the Labour Party said this was another historic day for Malta.

From a country that was considered behind in civil rights up to only a few years ago, it had now become a beacon of hope and an example to other countries.

Love had won over intolerance, equality over segregation. Above all, Malta had won as it was giving all its people, whoever they were and whatever their beliefs, independently of their sexual orientation, the same opportunities.

A government led by Dr Muscat, it said, would continue working for equality to really become the country's foundation leaving behind a legacy for future generations.

"This is the best time for our country," it said. </s> Last November, the Federal Constitution Court ruled that Germans must be allowed to be entered in records as neither male nor female, saying the records must either eliminate the category of gender or create "another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female," AP reported.

The ruling concluded a three-year legal battle involving an intersex person — someone whose sex characteristics do not fit standard definitions of either male or female — who used a karyotype analysis to prove that they had only one X chromosome but no other sex chromosome, a condition known as Turner Syndrome.

As a consequence of the ruling, parents will now have the option to register their newborns as "diverse" instead of male or female, and adults can voluntarily opt to change their gender to diverse on their legal records.

The Cabinet's decision must still be approved by parliament, The Hill notes.

Franziska Giffey, Germany's Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and representative of the Social Democratic Party in the government's ruling coalition, said the ruling is "an important step toward the legal recognition of people whose gender identity is neither male nor female," Pink News reported.

The Constitution Court of Austria, Germany's neighbor, ruled in June that people can be entered in official records as something other than male or female, if they so wish, but since Austrian law doesn't explicitly require that someone's legal gender be male or female, there was no need to write a new law for the change.

In May, Pakistan passed a sweeping civil rights law for transgender and third gender people that extended the right of legal recognition of khawaja sira, a third gender in Desi society, on all legal forms and identification, Sputnik reported.

A number of other countries have some form of third gender or gender x identification on legal forms as well, including Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, Portugal, some US states and the District of Columbia, a federal district that houses the US capital.

However, many other cultures recognize a third gender and other non-binary genders as well, although they do not yet have legal status. </s> Germany’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a third gender option for official records that will allow people to be registered as “diverse,” complying with a ruling from the country’s highest court.

In November, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that people must be allowed to be entered in records as neither male nor female, ordering authorities either to create a third identity or scrap gender entries altogether.

It ruled on a case in which a plaintiff sought unsuccessfully to have their entry in the birth register changed from “female” to “inter/diverse” or “diverse.” Until now, the only other option was to leave the gender blank.

During a three-year legal battle, the plaintiff provided a genetic analysis showing one X chromosome but no second sex chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y chromosome. The top court found that authorities could decide to do without any gender identity in civil registers or allow people in a similar situation to choose “another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female.”

READ MORE: B.C. baby first to get health card without gender marker

Wednesday’s Cabinet decision to add a third gender option, “diverse,” to the register of births requires parliamentary approval.

The center-left minister for families in Germany’s conservative-led coalition government, Franziska Giffey, said it is “an important step toward the legal recognition of people whose gender identity is neither male nor female.”

However, advocacy groups and some opposition politicians said it didn’t go far enough.

“Why should you produce a doctor’s certificate to change your civil status?” opposition Green party lawmakers Sven Lehmann and Monika Lazar asked in a joint statement. “That must be a self-determined decision that is open to all.”

In neighboring Austria, the Constitutional Court ruled in June that authorities there must allow people to be entered in official records as something other than male or female if they so wish.

However, it found no need to change that country’s existing law since it doesn’t specify explicitly that people’s gender must be male or female.

Canada has taken similar moves in the past, including a baby in British Columbia who recently became one of the world’s first to receive a health card without a gender marker.

Shortly after, a court ordered the government of Saskatchewan to allow the removal of gender markers on birth certificates, and a filmmaker in Ontario recently received a non-binary birth certificate after a drawn out legal battle.

By a slight majority however, Canadians remain uncomfortable with gender neutral birth certificates, according to a poll released by Angus Reid last July. </s> Angola's parliament has decriminalised homosexuality, removing a notorious "vices against nature" provision in its penal code and banning discrimination against sexual orientation, in a reform hailed by rights watchdogs.

On Wednesday, 155 parliamentarians voted for Angola's first overhaul of the criminal statute books since independence, while seven abstained and one voted against.

"Angola has finally shed the divisive 'vices against nature' provision in its law," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement.

"In casting aside this archaic and insidious relic of the colonial past, Angola has eschewed discrimination and embraced equality."

While Angola had no known prosecutions under the old law, HRW said the contested provision harmed the rights of gay, bisexual and transgender people and exposed their lives to painful scrutiny. </s> The German Cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft bill that would add a third gender option to official identity records.

The bill allows intersexual people to register their gender as "divers," which translates roughly to "miscellaneous" or "other," and would come into force by the end of the year. Until now, people in a similar situation could only register without a gender.

The draft law follows a Constitutional Court ruling last year that found the current system violated a person's individual rights and anti-discriminatory laws.

The court had ruled on a case in which a plaintiff with one X chromosome but no second sex chromosome had tried unsuccessfully to change their gender at a birth register from "female" to third category. Females have two X chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y chromosome.

The judges found that authorities must choose to either scrap gender identification altogether or allow people in a similar situation to choose "another positive designation of their sex that is not male or female."

Wednesday's Cabinet decision still requires parliamentary approval before coming into force. However, Franziska Giffey, Germany's Social Democratic (SPD) minister for families, hailed the decision "an important step toward the legal recognition of people whose gender identity is neither male nor female."

Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD) also welcomed the draft bill, saying "it is long overdue that we finally modernize the Personal Statute Act" and that "no one may be discriminated against because of their sexual identity."

The Justice Ministry also indicated that it would draw up further laws aiming to get rid of other discriminatory regulations against intersexuals.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> Intersex people in Germany can now legally identify themselves as a third gender, under a new law adopted in December.

People who do not fit the biological definition of male or female can now choose the category "diverse" on official documents.

Those choosing the option will need a doctor's certificate to register.

Intersex people are born with both male and female sex characteristics, which can appear at birth or later in life.

Other countries have approved laws in recent years to help recognise intersex people.

Austria's constitutional court made a similar ruling to Germany's in June, while Australia, New Zealand, Malta, India and Canada have all passed measures to redress issues facing intersex citizens.

The UN says up to 1.7% of the world's population are born with intersex traits - about the same number of people with red hair.
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This is separate from a person's gender identity or sexual orientation.

But many face stigma, legal discrimination or even forced surgery because of these characteristics.

Germany previously allowed intersex people to opt out of choosing either male or female as a gender in 2013.

But in 2017 the country's top court ruled it was discrimination to deny people a gender, after a person registered as female had a chromosome test confirming they were neither sex.

Germany's parliament approved the law change last month, to come into effect on 1 January.

BBC Europe regional editor Danny Aeberhard says some people believe it is a step too far, while gender activists think the need for a doctor's certificate will make proof harder for intersex people without physical characteristics.
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The Parliament of Portugal passed a new law, by a 109 vote margin, making it easier for people to change their legal gender. Portuguese citizens from the age of 16 will now be able to change their gender and name in documents without the need of a medical report.