The Lower House of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, approved this Friday a law that will facilitate the change of name and gender identity in official documents. This decision has been promoted by the parties of the Government coalition and celebrated by the LGTBI community.

The current law, from 1980, establishes that Transsexual, intersex or non-binary people require psychiatric reports and a judge’s permission to change your name in the registry. Starting in November, a purely administrative procedure will suffice.

The measure has gone ahead with 374 votes in favor and 251 against, among them those of the conservative bloc led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The Greens deputy Nyke Slawik, a transsexual, has regretted that the rights of the group are always “the subject of negotiation”, as reported by the DPA news agency.

Along these same lines, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has celebrated that Germany joins the countries that want to “abolish pathologization” when it comes to understanding gender identity, since it considers that there are laws that “no longer have fit in diverse and democratic societies”.

“Now that populist politicians in Europe and other regions try to use trans rights as a political weapon, Germany’s new law sends a clear message that trans people exist and deserve recognition and protection, without discrimination,” emphasized researcher Cristian González Cabrera, HRW expert on LGTBI issues.