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'Frenchman' with penis and vagina denied third gender

The Local France
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'Frenchman' with penis and vagina denied third gender
Photo: Wildcatsg/flickr

A French appeals court has overturned a landmark decision to recognise a third gender for a person born with both a "micropenis" and rudimentary vagina", court documents showed Tuesday.

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A lower court ruled in August last year that a hermaphrodite plaintiff who was designated male at birth, could use the term "neutral gender" on personal official documents.

However, magistrates at the Orleans appeals court southwest of Paris ruled that to accept the plaintiff's request "would require recognising, in the guise of a simple rectification of his personal records, the existence of another sexual category."

Mila Petkova, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said her client was "very disappointed" with the court's decision.

"This is an additional violence inflicted on my client," she said, adding she would take the case to France's court of last resort and if necessary to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

According to his doctor the plaintiff, 64, was born with a "rudimentary vagina" and a "micropenis" but no testicles.

He approached the courts as he did not want such an "unequivocal" designation as male or female.

Speaking to the newspaper 20Minutes back in October the 64-year-old,who is married with an adopted child and lives in eastern France said: "As a teenager I understood that I was not a boy. I didn't have a beard, my muscles didn't build."

After doctors administered testosterone he said "My appearance became more masculine. It was a shock, I no longer recognized myself. It made me realize I was neither a man nor a woman."

But the prosecutor who appealed the initial decision said he did so not because he fiercely opposed it but because he felt a higher ruling was necessary in a case that has "collided with current laws".

The appeals court said it was necessary to find "a fair balance between the protection of the state of persons, which is a public issue, and respect for the private lives of people with a variation of sexual development."

"This fair balance would allow either for personal records which mention no sexual category, or the modification of the gender which has been assigned to them when it is not in line with their physical appearance and social behaviour."

The magistrates said that as the plaintiff was married and he and his wife had adopted a child, a request to change his civil status "contradicted his physical appearance and social behaviour."

Several countries including Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Nepal officially recognise a third gender on official forms.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh also have an official third gender designation for so-called hijra citizens who do not identify as male or female.

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