Germany’s top court has called on the country’s parliament to legally recognize a ‘third gender’ which allows intersex people to identify as neither male nor female. Germany could become the first European country to allow a third gender on birth certificates. The current law on civil status discriminates against intersex people as it rules out “the registration of a gender other than ‘male’ or ‘female,’” the Federal Constitutional Court said in a ruling on Wednesday. The German parliament should introduce new
provisions into current legislation by December 31, 2018, it said. The court made its ruling in favor of an appeal brought earlier this year by an intersex person whose name hasn’t been revealed in the German media. The person was registered as female but chromosome analysis showed that the plaintiff was neither male nor female. The person brought the appeal to the top court after several lower courts had ruled against the bid for gender change in the birth register. MORE
