{"id":26726,"date":"2020-08-31T09:28:45","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T09:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/z6frttwr.ordoiuris.io\/aktualnosc\/strasbourg-court-judgment-contrary-to-biological-facts-bulgarian-authorities-must-recognise-a-woman-as-a-man\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:10:11","slug":"strasbourg-court-judgment-contrary-to-biological-facts-bulgarian-authorities-must-recognise-a-woman-as-a-man","status":"publish","type":"informacje","link":"https:\/\/ordoiuris.pl\/en\/press-newsdesk\/strasbourg-court-judgment-contrary-to-biological-facts-bulgarian-authorities-must-recognise-a-woman-as-a-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Strasbourg Court judgment contrary to biological facts. Bulgarian authorities must recognise a woman as a man"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sided with a Bulgarian woman who, contrary to Bulgarian law, demanded that she be recognised as a man. The courts refused to register her as a man in the civil status records, as her legal gender must correspond to her biological gender. As a court of second instance emphasised, changing a person\u2019s appearance does not change their actual gender. However, ECHR considered the decision of the Bulgarian authorities an infringement of the woman\u2019s right to privacy.<\/span><\/span><\/b> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, a female Bulgarian citizen applied to a court to change her name, registered gender and identification number in the civil status records. She supported the request with medical records which showed that she had previously undergone breast removal surgery, which was to make her look like a man. The court rejected the request, indicating that according to the Bulgarian law there are two genders, and the gender recorded in the civil status records must correspond to the biological gender of the person concerned. Bulgarian law did not provide for the possibility of \u201csex reassignment\u201d. A similar decision was taken by a court of second instance, which added that a surgery can change a person\u2019s appearance, but cannot change their actual gender.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016 the woman filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, alleging that her right to privacy was violated. ECHR agreed with her, stating that Bulgaria breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court concluded that a part of the right to privacy is \u201cthe right to acknowledge the legal effects of sex reassignment\u201d, which was supposedly violated in this case. ECHR remarked that although the Bulgarian law did not provide for the procedure of sex reassignment, the case law allow such a possibility, and the courts in this case did not take account of that case law. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is yet another judgment of the Court attempting to establish a right to self-define one\u2019s gender despite basic biological facts and the applicable international law. For several years now the Court, in its judgments on the so-called transsexuals, has been reiterating that everyone has the right to choose their own gender, and the state has a duty to recognise this \u2013 regardless of whether or not such a person wants to look like the opposite sex. In practice, therefore, the Court requires Member States to treat transsexual women as men, and men with this disorder as women, even if they have not undergone any surgery or hormone therapy. The Court\u2019s case law undermines the fundamental principle of the law of civil status records, which states that personal data \u2013 one\u2019s name, registered gender, ID number \u2013 should reflect the biological reality. If one\u2019s gender is decided on the basis of one\u2019s subjective feeling, in the nearest future this may lead to the undermining of the identity of marriage as a relationship between a woman and a man,\u201d said Filip Furman, PhD, Director of the Centre for Social Sciences and Bioethics of the Ordo Iuris Institute.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The case of Y. T. v. Bulgaria, ECHR judgment of 9 July 2020<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sided with a Bulgarian woman who, contrary to Bulgarian law, demanded that she be recognised as a man. The courts refused to register her as a man in the civil status records, as her legal gender must correspond to her biological gender. As a court of second instance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":25193,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"wyswietlanie":[137],"tagi":[146],"typ-wpisu":[202],"malzenstwo-i-rodzina":[],"suwerenna-i-niepodlegla-rp":[],"chronmy-dzieci-szkola-i-edukacja":[],"w-obronie-chrzescijan":[],"ochrona-zycia-i-bioetyka":[],"wolnosc-odpowiedzialnosc":[],"class_list":["post-26726","informacje","type-informacje","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","wyswietlanie-dzialalnosc-instytutu-aktualnosci-en","tagi-gender-ideology","typ-wpisu-press-newsdesk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStrasbourg Court judgment contrary to biological facts. 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