Nikolo with his grandson. Photo: Dato Parulava/OC Media.
A Georgian transgender man has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after local courts rejected his plea to have his gender changed in official documents without undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
Forty-six-year-old Nikolo, who has a medical certificate confirming that he is a transgender man, first appealed to the Justice Ministry in 2015 but was turned down because he had not undergone sex reassignment surgery.
‘Even though I want the surgery, I can’t afford it. Moreover, my health condition wouldn’t allow me to do it’, Nikolo told OC Media.
He said that the sex marker in his documents indicating that he is female had caused many problems and embarrassing situations.
‘It’s most problematic when I’m applying for a job. I don’t look like what my documents say about me. Rejection is guaranteed and you can’t even prove that this is the cause for rejection’, said Nikolo, adding that he also encounters problems when crossing borders.
‘Crossing borders is problematic. For example, in [Azerbaijan] they wouldn’t let me cross, saying that there was a mistake in my documents’, said Nikolo.
After the Ministry of Justice refused his request, Nikolo appealed to the courts but was turned down at all three levels.
The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), a local rights group, filed the appeal to the ECHR on Nikolo’s behalf. The group argues that Georgian legislation does not provide the regulations needed for a person to change the sex marker in their documents.
‘Despite the lack of regulations, administrative organs and national courts require gender reassignment surgery as a prerequisite to change the sex marker, even though according to international standards, such surgery is considered a luxury and potentially a life-threatening procedure’, GYLA said in a statement on Thursday.
The group recalled the ECHR’s 2017 ruling in which it was established that officially changing one’s gender could not be made conditional on undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
The case, of Garçon and Nicot v. France, concerned three French transgender people who had been prevented from changing the sex and forenames on their birth certificates.
The three argued, among other things, that the authorities had infringed on their right to respect for private life by making recognition of their gender identity conditional on undergoing an operation which would most likely make them sterile.
‘The Court held, in particular, that making recognition of the sexual identity of transgender persons conditional on undergoing an operation or sterilising treatment to which they did not wish to submit amounted to making the full exercise of one’s right to respect for private life conditional on relinquishing full exercise of the right to respect for one’s physical integrity’, a press release by the ECHR says.
In March 2018, dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of Tbilisi’s public service hall demanding that transgender people be allowed to more easily change the sex indicated on official identity documents.
The protest was organised by feminist group the Georgian Women’s Movement to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March. The protesters were met by a homophobic counter-rally who threw eggs and chanted ‘shame’.
‘Be ashamed in front of your friends, your neighbourhood, your ancestors. Be ashamed, descendants of David and Tamar’, one of the demonstrators said.
A 2018 report by the Public Defender’s Office noted a number of issues faced by transgender people in Georgia.
It reiterated the need for procedures to change the sex-markers of transgender people in official documents to be eased.
‘The prerequisite of sterilisation to change sex-markers in documents contradicts the principles of respecting one’s body, self-determination, and human dignity’, said the report.
The report noted that because of the current rules, transgender people were unable to use state services.
‘They face problems in public engagement, receiving an education, working, and receiving health services, which is negatively reflected on their rights’, the report said.
It also noted that the state budget did not cover medical services for transgender people’s needs.
The report added that transgender people were especially vulnerable to human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Georgia.
The report also said that mechanisms to protect queer people from domestic violence were insufficient. This issue was previously identified in the Public Defender’s 2017 report, which noted that ‘unfortunately, law enforcement officials don’t have an efficient strategy against hate-motivated violence. They react to individual cases and don’t take action against the systematic problem’.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Georgia violated the right to a fair trial in a case involving two key judiciary figures: a judge accused of belonging to the ‘clan’ in Georgia’s judiciary and a constitutional court judge currently reviewing the lawsuits against Georgia’s foreign agent bill.
On 29 August, the ECHR found that Georgia breached the right to a fair trial for Tamar Khachapuridze and Kakhaber Khachidze, along with their son Davit Khachidze.
In August 2016,
The ruling Georgian Dream party has accused the formerly ruling opposition of starting and provoking the August 2008 War, vowing again to punish the opposition after October’s parliamentary elections.
In a statement about the August 2008 War, Georgian Dream railed on the role the formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) in the conflict. They cited a 2008 Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly report on the conflict suggesting that Georgia’s shelling of Tskhinvali (Tskhinval) without wa
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Georgia failed to prevent and investigate an instance of femicide, and ordered the state to pay compensation to the family of the victim.
According to the ECHR ruling on Thursday, the 23-year-old woman took her own life in 2017 after years of reporting physical and verbal abuse by her partner to the police. Her partner and child were at home at the time.
They found that Georgia had violated the right to life and the prohibition of
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Georgian State Security Services (SSG) violated the right to life of 19-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili, who was shot dead in a raid on his home in the Pankisi Valley in December 2017.
In their ruling on Thursday, the court found insufficient evidence to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that Machalikashvili was unlawfully killed, finding the state’s explanation that he was reaching for a hand grenade when shot ‘plausible’.
However, the
