MADRID - A 50-year-old transsexual on Tuesday became the first person in Spain to legally change their gender without undergoing surgery under a new law approved last month, a gay activist group said.
Julio Cuesta, who was born a woman, obtained the right to call himself a man in official documents at a civil registry office in Valencia, Spain's third-largest city, the director of the Lambda gay association, Luisa Notario, told AFP.
"He has felt like a man and called himself Julio since adolescence but he could not be operated on to change his gender because of a handicap," she said.
The new legislation requires transsexuals to produce a medical certificate diagnosing their gender dysfunction and show they have undergone hormonal treatments for at least two years before changes in identity documents can be performed.
Prior to the new law, would-be transsexuals could only change their identity and civil status on official documents with the approval of law courts after undergoing a sex change operation.
The Spanish endocrinological society puts the number of transsexuals in the country at 3 000, but associations who represent them put the figure as high as 9 000.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists have already pushed through a raft of liberal social policies, including the 2005 authorisation of same-sex "marriages" and adoption by homosexuals.
from Independent Online
No comments:
Post a Comment