Children in Mexico City might soon be able to legally change their name and gender through a “quick” formality at a government office.
A proposal to allow minors to change the details on their birth certificates with the authorization of one of their parents will be presented in the Mexico City Congress next week after it won support from two congressional committees.
Nineteen lawmakers voted in favor of the bill while just three voted against it.
The Morena party-backed bill proposes changing Mexico City’s civil code to enable transgender children and adolescents to change their name and gender by completing an administrative procedure at civil registry offices.
To do so they would have to be accompanied by either their mother, father or legal guardian.
As Mexico City law currently stands, only adults are able to legally change their name and gender on their birth certificates via an administrative procedure while minors must present their case in court.
Morena Deputy Paola Soto, one of the bill’s two main proponents, said the proposed law would guarantee the rights of transgender minors.
They would be able to complete a “quick and effective administrative procedure” that doesn’t impose a burden of proof on them to show that they really do identify as the gender they wish to legally assume, she said.
“. . . Above all, it doesn’t imply a revictimizing judicial process as is now in force,” Soto said.
The proposal faces opposition from lawmakers with the other three major parties but Morena has a majority in the 66-seat unicameral Congress.
National Action Party Deputy Christian von Roehrich said that only the federal Congress is authorized to make civil code changes as per a Supreme Court ruling.
“. . . The court established that precisely to avoid the madness . . . that Morena is proposing,” he said.
Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp)
