Transgender people should be able to change their name and gender on birth certificates and identity documents, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said in a resolution adopted today.

It called on European governments to “develop quick, transparent and accessible procedures” for this “based on self-determination” and for the abolition of the legal requirement of sterilisation and other compulsory medical treatment.

Consideration should be given to the possibility of “including a third gender option in identity documents for those who seek it”.

The resolution follows the adoption by Malta of the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act, which is intended to protect the fundamental rights of intersex and transgender people.

In line with the proposals by rapporteur Deborah Schembri, parliamentarians called on member states to make gender reassignment procedures, such as hormone treatment, surgery and psychological support, accessible for transgender people and to “ensure that they are reimbursed by public health insurance schemes”. Limitations to cost coverage should be “lawful, objective and proportionate”.

The resolution stresses that national and international classifications of diseases should be amended to ensure that transgender people, including children, “are not labelled as mentally ill”, and steps should be taken to ensure “stigma-free access to necessary medical treatment”.

The text concludes that discrimination based on gender identity should be explicitly prohibited in national anti-discrimination legislation and that the human rights situation of transgender people should be included in the mandate of national human rights institutions “with an explicit reference to gender identity”.