NEW LAW ALLOWS PEOPLE TO CHANGE GENDER IN PUBLIC RECORDS скачать в хорошем качестве

NEW LAW ALLOWS PEOPLE TO CHANGE GENDER IN PUBLIC RECORDS

(5 Jun 2012) Transsexuals lined up in Buenos Aires on Monday to be the first to take advantage of Argentina's ground-breaking gender-identity law, which enables people to change their names and sexes on official documents without first getting approval from a judge or doctor. No other country in the world allows people to change their official identities based merely on how they feel. Many other countries, including the United States, require people to pass barriers that sexual identity experts describe as painful or humiliating, such as hormone therapy or surgeries to physically change their sex organs and psychiatric visits to demonstrate they have "gender identity disorder" or other abnormalities. Argentina's gender identity law won congressional approval with a 55-0 Senate vote last month and took effect on Monday. A small group of transsexuals chose to assert their rights immediately at a civil registry in downtown Buenos Aires. "I want the freedom to decide for myself without having anybody choose for you," said transsexual Maria Mara Brodos. She said she had struggled for years to persuade judges to allow her to get documents reflecting her change in gender. "In my case I had to undergo so many legal procedures and everybody was talking about me and I wasn't able to say who I really was," she recalled. "It was both funny and painful, because no one is authorised to say who I am, but me." Pedro Paradiso Zotile, a member of the Argentinean Homosexual Community organisation, said that the law can do much to heal the damage done by years of invasive legal procedures. "This law has to start repairing, day by day, the damage done to the human rights of these people who suffered because of their gender identity," he said. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...