A right to respect for gender identity: new standards for personal autonomy

Available in Russian

Available for free

Author: Tatiana Khramova

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2019-3-54-68

Keywords: dignity; gender identity; gender pluralism; personal autonomy; right to personal development; subjectivity of gender identification; substantive equality

Abstract

The article focuses on the right to respect of one’s gender identity, which is one of the inalienable attributes of personal autonomy and dignity in their contemporary understanding. Discovering the constitutional meaning of this right is an important task due to the rapid development of biomedical technologies and the subsequent rejection of a strict presumption of the objective nature of gender. The right to recognition of gender identity is based on two key principles that are gradually penetrating the legal systems of democratic countries: gender pluralism and the subjectivity of gender identification. The author employs a case study to demonstrate: 1) some of the best practices of utilizing these principles; and 2) major challenges in their implementation, as well as existing approaches to overcoming these challenges. The principle of gender pluralism presumes the legality of numerous genders in addition to male and female. Cases reviewed by the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Indian Supreme Court provide substantive arguments in favour of recognizing a “third” (“diverse”) gender and show how bodies of constitutional review may introduce progressive changes into legal systems and take on a leading role in forgoing stereotypes and widening the interpretation of personal autonomy and dignity. The principle of subjectivity of gender identification demands that the government officially recognizes one’s gender on the basis of a person’s deeply felt internal experience. The article considers several constitutional arguments used by national and international judicial authorities that contribute to the gradual adoption of the above-mentioned principle, rejecting sex reassignment surgery as a necessary prerequisite for official gender recognition. The author devotes a special paragraph to the issue of the interconnection between the right to recognition of one’s gender identity and the principle of gender equality. The article notices that in many jurisdictions there is a shift from the principle of formal equality to that of substantive equality resulting in the approval of certain measures of positive discrimination based on gender. This trend brings along the extension of the spectrum of state obligations regarding the procedures of official gender recognition, as well as securing the rights of people who have undergone gender reassignment.

About the author: Tatiana Khramova – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Khramova T. (2019) Pravo na uvazheniye gendernoy identichnosti: novyye standarty avtonomii lichnosti [A right to respect for gender identity: new standards for personal autonomy]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.28, no.3, pp.54–68. (In Russian).

References

Agrawal A. (2019) India’s new transgender bill and its discontents. Oxford Human Rights Hub, 27 January. Available at: http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/indias-new-transgender-bill-and-its-discontents/ (accessed: 18.05.2019).

Amnesty International (2014) The State decides who I am: lack of gender recognition for transgender people in Europe, London: Amnesty International Ltd. Available at: http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/02/the-state-decides-who-i-am.pdf (accessed: 18.05.2019).

Babenko A.Yu., Isaev D.D. (eds.) (2015) Mezhdunarodnye meditsinskie standarty pomoshchi trasgendernym lyudyam [International medical standards for transgender people], Saint Petersburg: TSSII “Deystvie”. (In Russian).

Blackless M., Charuvastra A., Derryck A., Fausto-Sterling A., Lauzanne K., Lee E. (2000) How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis. American Journal of Human Biology, vol.12, no.2, pp.151–166.

Delahunt H.J., Denison H.J., Sim D.A., Bullock J.J., Krebs J.D. (2018) Increasing rates of people identifying as transgender presenting to Endocrine Services in the Wellington Region. The New Zealand Medical Journal, vol.131, no.1468, pp.33–42.

Filatova M.A. (2014) Sovremennye voprosy positivnoy diskriminatsii v kontekste praktiki konstitutsionnykh sudov [Modern issues of positive discrimination in the context of the practice of constitutional courts]. Zhurnal konstitutsionnogo pravosudiya, no.5, pp.19–28. (In Russian).

Fredman S. (2017) Vozvrashchayas' k voprosu o soderzhatel'nom ravenstve [Returning to the issue of meaningful equality]. Sravnitel'noe konstitu­tsionnoe obozrenie, vol.26, no.1, pp.37–63. (In Russian).

Hare L., Bernard P., Sánchez F.J., Baird P.N., Vilain E., Kennedy T., Harley V.R. (2008) Androgen Receptor Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-Female Transsexualism. Biological Psychiatry, vol.65, no.1, pp.93–96.

Hubmann D. (2017) Erstmals in Graz: Schwangerer Mann bringt Kind zur Welt, Kleine Zeitung. Available at: https://www.kleinezeitung.at/steiermark/graz/5175017/Exklusiv_Erstmals-in-Graz_Schwangerer-Mann-bringt-Kind-zur-Welt (accessed: 18.05.2019).

Hughes I.A., Houk C., Ahmed S.F., Lee P.A. (2006) Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders. Pediatrics, vol.118, no.2, pp.488–500.

Katyal S.K. (2017) The “Numerus Clausus” of Sex. The University of Chicago Law Review, vol.84, no.1, pp.389–494.

Kruss V.I. (2000) Lichnostnye (“somaticheskie”) prava cheloveka v konstitutsionnom i filosofsko-pravovom izmerenii: k postanovke problemy [Personal (“somatic”) human rights in the constitutional and philosophical and legal dimension: to the statement of the problem]. Gosudarstvo i pravo, no.10, pp.43–50. (In Russian).

Nesterova E.M. (2014) Lichnostnye (somaticheskie) prava v sisteme prav cheloveka: Avtoref. dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [Personal (somatic) rights in the human rights system: Abstract of a dissertation… candidate of legal science], Moscow. (In Russian).

Oakley A. (1993) Sex, Gender and Society, Aldershot: Arena.

Podoplelova O. (2018) Dela o gendernoy discriminatsii v praktike Evropeyskogo Suda po pravam cheloveka: otsenka ehffektivnosti podkhodov [Cases of gender discrimination in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights: assessment of the effectiveness of approaches]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol.8, no.3, pp.36–44. (In Russian).

Reilly-Cooper R. (2016) Equality for trans people must not come at the expense of women’s safety. Politics.co.uk, 26 January. Available at: https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/01/26/equality-for-trans-people-must-not-come-at-the-expense-of-wo (accessed: 17.05.2019).

Rosenberg G.N. (1991) The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Rubio-Marín R. (2017) Women’s political citizenship in new European constitutionalism: between constitutional amendment and progressive interpretation. In: Irving H. (ed.) Gender and Constitutions, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.323–356.

Salagay O.O. (2011) Definitsiya biologicheskogo pola cheloveka v mezhdunarodnom i natsional'nom prave [The definition of human biological sex in international and national law]. Gosudarstvo i parvo, no.6, pp.34–40. (In Russian).

Sax L. (2002) How сommon is intersex? A response to Anne Fausto-Sterling. The Journal of Sex Research, vol.39, no.3, pp.174–178.

Vesson M. (2008) Ravenstvo i dostoinstvo v praktike organov konstitutsionnogo pravosudiya Kanady i YuAR [Equality and dignity in the practice of constitutional justice of Canada and South Africa]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.17, no.4, pp.37–49. (In Russian).

Young S. (2019) Fury as ex-olympian Sharron Davies says trans women should not compete in women’s sport, Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/sharron-davies-transgender-women-banned-sport-a8805186.html (accessed: 18.05.2019).