Lithuanian conservative parliamentarians led by the chairman of the Committee on Health Affairs registered a proposal to amend the Civil Code with a prohibition of gender reassignment surgery on March 9. The members of the Seimas who submitted this draft amendment to the Civil Code state that if the permission to undergo gender reassignment surgery is replaced with the prohibition of such surgeries, ‘the state will be protected from any preconditions which create grounds for the appearance of claims against Lithuania at the European Court of Human Rights’.
At present, Lithuania’s Civil Code provides that an unmarried adult is entitled to undergo gender reassignment surgery if it is possible medically, while the conditions and procedure of gender reassignment are set by legislation. No such legislation has been passed, however.
The initiators of the draft amendment propose that the aforementioned provisions be deleted and replaced by the provision that gender reassignment surgery is prohibited in Lithuania and that civil registry entries concerning gender reassignment surgeries performed abroad be amended by court decision only.
In 2007, Lithuania lost a case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concerning a transsexual person’s right to gender reassignment. The infringement was recognized because Lithuania had not adopted any special law concerning gender reassignment, although such a law is mentioned in the Civil Code.
The Court recognized that Lithuania had violated the claimant’s right for private life and obligated the country to o pass a law regulating the procedure and conditions of gender reassignment within three months after the ruling entered into force.
Vladimir Simonko, chair of the national LGBT advocacy organization LGL expressed strong concerns about the legislative initiative which, if adopted, would clearly contravene Lithuania’s obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights. Trans people are already suffering from discrimination because national equal treatment law does not explicitly include gender reassignment, the LGL chair said in a statement.
The MPs who submitted the controversial proposal stated that Lithuanian society ‘views gender reassignment very controversially; society is not ready to accept gender reassignment practices due to certain psychosocial reasons, and therefore the permission to undergo gender reassignment surgeries will lead to a number of medical and ethical issues’.
The IGLYO Board calls upon European Human Rights institutions, LGBTQ watchdog organizations and our members to take a joint action against the Lithuanian parliament’s proposal that goes against the European Court decision and, if adopted, would aggravate the situation of transgender people in Lithuania.
IGLYO urges Lithuanian MPs to decide against making the proposed amendments to the Civil Code. As a CoE member state, Lithuania must follow the Council of Europe Recommendations on Measures to Combat Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. It is highly important that transgender people in Lithuania have equal opportunities to express their gender identity, without having to face any legal restrictions when accessing procedures to change their sex and identity documents.
We do urge European institutions and defenders to remind Lithuania about its commitments and respect the fundamental principles of equality and non-discrimination.
