Today the Court has found a violation in a case concerning three transgender persons of French nationality who wished to change the entries concerning their sex and their forenames on their birth certificates, and who were not allowed to so do by the courts in the respondent State (A.P., Garcon & Nicot v France). The applicants submitted, among other points, that the authorities had infringed their right to respect for their private life by making recognition of sexual identity conditional on undergoing an operation involving a high probability of sterility.

The Court held, in particular, that making recognition of the sexual identity of transgender persons conditional on undergoing an operation or sterilising treatment to which they did not wish to submit amounted to making the full exercise of one’s right to respect for private life conditional on relinquishing full exercise of the right to respect for one’s physical integrity.

The judgment