The Diotima Center welcomes the initiative of the Greek state to legislate the right of all citizens to their gender identity.
The legal recognition of a person’s right to have his or her gender reassigned in public documents, if he or she so wishes, offers a portion of people, who have historically been subjected to the violence of an extreme form of social and institutional marginalization, the right to dignity.
The new regulation satisfies us insofar as it removes any direct links between the psychiatric condition of the individual and the gender dimension of his or her personality, recalling that it was precisely the same gamble that women were called upon to win in the previous century in terms of access to the public sphere, and in particular the right to vote and to be elected.
We are also particularly pleased that the conditions for permanent physical interventions in exchange for the individual’s right of access to the recording of his or her legally registered data, which has been explicitly described as torture by internationally prestigious global human rights organizations.
We hope that the state will continue in the direction of improving the framework of gender identity protection:
- simplifying procedures for transgender people
- removing age restrictions for children and adolescents, who clearly need access to this right
- broadening the legislation to protect more comprehensively the right to family life of married people, whether or not they are in the process of gender reassignment.
The Diotima Centre upholds the right of every person to dignity and the free development of their personality regardless of their gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
