TGEU Position Paper on Gender Markers

The General Assembly of Transgender Europe tasked the Steering Committee in 2016 to develop a position on gender markers. Staff and steering committee developed the present position taking into the fast moving developments in this area. The TGEU position paper on gender markers was approved by the Steering Committee on 13 June 2018.

As the foundation of this position, Transgender Europe (TGEU) fully endorses Principle 31 of the Yogyakarta Principles +10 , calling for the full abolition of gender markers on official identity documents, the curtailing of collection of gender and sex information wherever possible in public records, and where gender markers remain, creating a quick, transparent, and accessible method for amendments without any requirements or restrictions. Additionally, TGEU acknowledges the ongoing need for aggregate data on sex and gender as part of gender equity data monitoring by States. For this reason, sex and gender data, when collected for these purposes, should be collected voluntarily and on the basis of self-determination only, with at least one additional coding option in addition to the possibility for the code to be marked unspecified (e.g. X), and stored only in aggregate in fulfillment of the right to privacy.