Argentinian citizen has obtained the first ever birth certificate without a gender definition, Buenos Aires Times reported on Thursday.
Argentina’s government has passed the Gender Identity Law passed in 2012, six years after, the first gender-neutral birth certificate was issued to the 32-year-old citizen González Davesa. A person who decided to identify itself as nor male neither female lives in Mendoza province, some 1,100 kilometres west of the capital.
The Gender Identity Law establishes that “everyone has a right to determine their gender identity and to be treated and identified in accordance with it.” However, during six years, there were no registry precedents. In fact, the civil registry had accepted the marker omission until now.
To obtain the historical certificate, Gerónimo Carolina González Davesa just filed an administrative request, in which he declared the desire not to identify itself as male or female. The director of the Civil Registry of Mendoza was surprised but Davesa’s request is absolutely legal, there were no legal arguments to decline the request
“We consulted with the governor and were able to grant the permission,” Enzo Rizzo told the journalists.
According to a resolution from the regional government, the civil registry must issue new birth certificates in which a line “must be entered” to indicate the sex of an individual. This way the individual can request the sex designation to be omitted from any other personal document.
Even prior to the Gender Identity Law’s passage, Argentina has been considered a pioneer in Latin America for authorising same-sex marriage in 2010 and, two years later, recognising femicide as a crime committed against a woman or “a person who self-identifies with a feminine gender identity.”
