Refusal to recognise a change of gender legally undertaken in another member state violates the rights of EU citizens, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice ruled today.
Refusing to recognise a citizen’s change of first name and gender legally acquired in another member state is contrary to EU law and constitutes an obstacle to the exercise of the right of free movement and residence, the European Court of Justice ruled today (4 October).
The decision follows a request by a British-Romanian citizen who changed his first name and title from female to male in 2017 and obtained legal recognition of his male gender identity in 2020 in the United Kingdom, where he had been living since 2008.
On the basis of these documents, the concerned citizen then asked the local authorities in his home country of Romania to register the change on his birth certificate and requested new documents reflecting his change of first name, gender and personal identification number.
The Romanian authorities refused to do so and instead asked him to open separate proceedings in Romania before the national courts to confirm the change of gender.
The individual therefore opened proceedings before a Bucharest court, which then referred the issue to the EU’s top court, asking whether Romania’s refusal to recognise the UK decision was within EU law and whether Brexit had any impact on the dispute.
The EU’s top court, based in Luxembourg, said Romania’s refusal to recognise the documents and its decision to force the citizen to start a new procedure to change the gender identity already acquired in the UK were unjustified.
Initiating new proceedings in the country of origin, the ECJ said, would also expose him to the risk that those proceedings would lead ‘to an outcome different from that obtained before the authorities of the member state which lawfully granted that change of first name and gender identity’.
The fact that the request was made in Romania after the UK exited the bloc was immaterial, the court said.
Separately, in 2021 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Romania breached the rights of two transgender people by not recognising their identity because they had not undergone gender reassignment surgery.
“This judgement will have an immensely positive impact, increasing legal protection for all trans people in the EU, all the more as certain EU countries like Romania still do not provide a legal framework for legal gender recognition conforming with European Court of Human Rights’ standards,” ILGA-Europe’s senior strategic litigation, Marie-Hélène Ludwig, said in a statement.
This article was updated to reflect ILGA’s views on the matter.
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