stackslip:

Bulgaria bans gender reassignment

www.euractiv.com

Transgender people are now banned from legally changing their gender in Bulgaria, according to the country’s Supreme Court, which issued a ruling that is automatically binding on all other courts.

“The current law does not provide for the possibility for the court to allow the change of the data regarding the gender, name and uniform civil number in the acts of civil status of an applicant who claims to be transgender,” the decision states.

Until now, some Bulgarian judges assumed that the legislation in the country allows legal gender change, but only explicitly after a court decision.

In the Supreme Court, however, other judges ruled in the opposite direction, and the country was condemned several times in cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for the lack of a clear regulation. (…)

The decision was dedicated to the sharp political and public debate on the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, which was finally repelled after a campaign filled with misinformation spread by nationalist parties on social networks.

this isn’t just a uk or north-america problem. it’s worldwide, and that’s not a coincidence. right-wingers everywhere are coordinating in suppressing trans people, sometimes as part of an open effort to also suppress all queer people and gender non-conformity, as well as abortion and equal rights for women; sometimes it’s more covert (like in the uk). but here it’s overt. the same tactics and use of social media, the same arguments, the same end goals–it isn’t simply a usamerican conservative or uk terf thing. it’s everywhere and in some countries the situation is becoming that much more dire with little pushback or acknowledgement.