Gender Identity Changes Must Be Recognized Across E.U. Borders, Court Rules

A man who changed his name and gender identity in Britain successfully challenged to have them legally recognized by Romania. “I’m representing everyone who is affected.”

The European Union’s top court on Friday said governments in the bloc must recognize legal changes to a person’s gender identity and name made in other E.U. nations, a milestone ruling that rights campaigners say will give transgender people more freedom to live and work around the region.

The decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union came after a British-Romanian transgender person challenged a decision by a local civil record authority in a Bucharest court. The authority had rejected his application in 2021 to change his gender identity on official documents.

The ruling applies to all countries in the European Union, and deems it a violation of a citizen’s rights not to acknowledge a person’s legal changes to their gender identity. Rights campaigners said the ruling was groundbreaking.

It could open pathways for transgender people who do not have their gender identities officially recognized in other countries of the European Union and face a range of difficulties as a result, they said.

“I really look forward to seeing how this benefits the younger generation,” said Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi, the key plaintiff in the case, in a Friday interview, adding that the ruling was emotionally moving. “It just felt like they were standing up. They were standing up for the situation that I’ve been finding myself in,” he said.

“You cannot have double standards anymore,” said Teodora Ion-Rotaru, co-president for the advocacy group Accept, adding that she found that some Eastern European nations still fostered a culture of discrimination toward transgender people. “It’s a message for this government that this is no longer applicable and acceptable.”

Romania’s foreign and interior ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the Court of Justice said that documents filed by the parties were not open to the public.

Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi, 32, was born in the city of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, where he was registered at birth as female. He moved with his parents to Britain in 2008, where he became a naturalized citizen and legally changed his identity. Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi adopted a new first name in 2017 and obtained a certificate recognizing his male gender identity in 2020.

The next year, after Britain left the bloc, he tried several avenues to update his Romanian documents, including requesting a new Romanian birth certificate identifying him as male. But Romanian authorities in Cluj-Napoca rejected his application, according to the ruling, insisting he complete Romania’s process for a gender identity change through that country’s courts. Europe’s top human rights court has called that process rigid and unclear, and said in 2021 that it involved questions that violated a right to privacy.

With the support of Accept, Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi took his dispute to a Romanian court, which referred the case to the Court of Justice. On Friday, it ruled that Romania must recognize the gender identity change that Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi had made in Britain.

The case will return to a Bucharest court, which will handle the implementation of the ruling, said Iustina Ionescu, a lawyer who represented Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi. Ms. Ionescu said that the judgment upheld European values, including freedom of movement, respect for privacy and equality.

Before the ruling, Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi had been required to travel to Romania using his Romanian passport, which did not reflect his gender identity, or enter as a non-European Union citizen.“There were no real paths forward,” Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi said, adding that he had tried to travel through Romania with his Romanian document and a letter about his transition from his British specialist. On one journey, he said, he was subjected to questioning from border officials that became uncomfortable and humiliating. “I felt held hostage to answer their questions if I wanted to go,” he said.

The Romanian government had earlier argued that the request for the court to consider the case was inadmissible, according to the ruling, because Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi had asked for the change in Romania after Britain had left the European Union.

But the ruling said that the case was admissible because he had exercised his freedom to move to Britain at a time when it was still part of the bloc, and that he had begun the legal process of changing his gender identity in Britain when the country was still within a transition period allocated for its withdrawal from the European Union.

Mr. Mirzarafie-Ahi said that having the updated documents would remove hurdles he faced while returning to Romania.

“I know that some people can’t be public, and I decided that I was comfortable to be public,” he said, of the case. “I’m representing everyone who is affected.”

In a separate ruling on Friday, the court also said that two Afghan women who were seeking asylum in a member state did not have to prove in their application that they were being persecuted by the Taliban, after an Austrian court had rejected their asylum claims. The court said that the women’s nationality and gender were enough to establish that they would be subject to persecution if they were to return to Afghanistan.

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