Dutch citizen may register as a third gender, court rules

A DUTCH citizen yesterday won the right for the first time to be allowed to register as neither a man nor a woman, with judges urging politicians to recognise a “third gender”.

The Limburg District Court in Roermond ruled that the unnamed plaintiff could be recorded in the Dutch birth register as “gender undetermined”.

“At birth in 1961, this person’s gender could not be determined and the parents decided to register the person as male, to make things easier at the time,” the court said in a statement.

In 2001 however, the plaintiff underwent medical treatment to become female. “Eventually it also turned out that the female gender did not fit the person, whose personality is genderneutral,” the court said, “feeling neither like a man nor a woman.”

The plaintiff then asked authorities to include a third, gender-neutral entry in the birth register.

A similar request by a different person was turned down in 2007 by the Netherlands’ High Council.

But due to “social and legal developments, the time is ripe for the recognition of a third gender,” the judges said. “To enable the registration of a third gender ‘X’, a legal amendment is crucial. It’s now up to the lawmakers.”

Meanwhile, “the court rules in favour of changing the person’s gender in the birth register to ‘gender could not be determined’,” the judges said.

Activists hailed the ruling, saying it was another step towards recognising the rights of the Dutch transgender population, estimated to be between 0.2 and 2 per cent of the country’s 17 million people.