EUROPEAN UNION

A new European Parenthood Certificate was approved by the European Union Parliament on Dec. 14, which included the recognition of same-sex parents. With 366 votes against 145 and 23 abstentions, MEPs backed draft legislation to ensure that, when parenthood is established by an EU country, the rest of the member states will recognize it.

The aim is to make sure that children enjoy the same rights under national law regarding education, healthcare, custody or succession. 

When it comes to establishment of parenthood at national level, member states will be able to decide whether to, for example, accept surrogacy, but they will be required to recognize parenthood established by another EU country irrespective of how the child was conceived, born or the type of family it has. 

Member states will have the option not to recognize parenthood if manifestly incompatible with their public policy, although this will only be possible in strictly defined cases. Each case will have to be considered individually to ensure there is no discrimination (i.e. against children of same sex parents.)

“No child should be discriminated against because of the family they belong to or the way they were born. Currently, children may lose their parents, legally speaking, when they enter another member state. This is unacceptable. With this vote, we come closer to the goal of ensuring that if you are a parent in one member state, you are a parent in all member states,” said lead MEP Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques (Portugal) following the vote.

Two million children may currently face a situation in which their parents are not recognized as such in another member state. While EU law already requires parenthood to be recognized under a child’s EU rights, this is not the case for the child’s rights under national law.

Parliament called for cross-border recognition of adoptions in 2017 and welcomed the commission’s initiative in its 2022 resolution. The commission proposal for a regulation aims to close the existing loopholes and ensure that all children can enjoy the same rights in each member state.

NORWAY

The Norwegian Parliament on Dec. 12 approved a law that would make the practice of conversion therapy illegal and a criminal offense. In the 85-15 vote, lawmakers codified the bill first introduced in June 2019 by Justice and Emergency Minister Emilie Enger Mehl and Culture and Equality Minister Anette Trettebergstuen.

The law will make it a criminal offense to try to get others to change their sexual orientation or gender identity through, among other things, medical, alternative medicine or religious methods.

The penalty will be three years’ imprisonment, or six years in more serious cases.

In a statement released by her office, Åse Kristin Ask Bakke, the elected representative to the Parliament from the constituency of Møre og Romsdal said: “We are finally putting an end to this harmful practice that has been going on for far too long. This is a historic day.”

Hilde Arntsen, the executive director of the Norwegian nonprofit FRI, the Association for Gender and Sexuality Diversity, an LGBTQ rights advocacy group, said in a statement: “Many queers have experienced painful and harmful attempts to change our identity through growing up and adulthood. Now, through a strong political majority, Norway has decided that attempts to change queer identity are unacceptable. Being queer is not a condition that requires therapy. We should be allowed to be in peace as who we are, and it is now illegal for anyone to try to change us.”

RUSSIA

Less than a month after the Russian Supreme Court ruled that “the international LGBT social movement,” of which there is no legal entity, Russia’s elite special police force known as the OMON raided several gay clubs in the nation including the Ural regional capital city of Yekaterinburg as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Russian media and Radio Free Europe/RL’s Russian Service reported that OMON raided the gay club Fame on the night of Dec. 10 in Yekaterinburg, detaining more than 100 people who were attending a theme party in the club. Authorities said the raid was prompted by reports from “concerned citizens” that the club was selling illicit alcohol and tobacco products. 

Local media outlets report that of the people were detained at the club, all of them were released after their documents were checked.

POLAND

The European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in a lawsuit brought by five Polish gay and lesbian couples that stated that the Polish government’s lack of legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples violated their human rights. 

Polish national news outlet Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported the ECHR rejected the Polish government’s arguments, which included that traditional marriage is part of Poland’s heritage, and found that “the Polish state had failed to comply with its duty to ensure a specific legal framework providing for the recognition and protection of same-sex unions.”

In its ruling ECHR, the court stressed the states signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights should “create a legal framework enabling people of the same sex enjoy the recognition and appropriate protection of their relationship through marriage or another form of union.”

In 2022, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that same-sex marriages of Polish citizens legally married in other countries were not expressly forbidden under the country’s constitution.

Article 18 of the constitution states: “marriage as a union of a man and a woman, family, motherhood and parenthood are under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland.”

“Article 18 of the constitution cannot in itself constitute an obstacle to transcribing a foreign marriage certificate if the institution of marriage as a union of persons of the same sex was provided for in the domestic [legal] order,” the court ruled.

“The provision of the constitution in question does not prohibit the statutory regulation of same-sex unions,” said the court, adding that it was simply the case that “at present the Polish legislature has not decided to introduce such solutions” into Polish law.

According to Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland is one of only six EU member states where same-sex couples cannot marry or register a civil partnership. 

The majority of Polish people support LGBTQ rights surrounding marriage and family, according to research by Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude.) 

“It took a long time, definitely too long,” Grzegorz Lepianka, one of those who brought the case against Poland, told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. “But I finally have some hope for real and truly good changes.”

Judgment Przybyszewska v. Poland – Lack of any form of legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples in Poland breaches the Conventionhttps://t.co/VPRGyyFanL#ECHR #CEDH #ECHRpress pic.twitter.com/0XIOkBkTwO

— ECHR CEDH (@ECHR_CEDH) December 12, 2023

Before the judgment in the case of the five Polish couples, the ECHR had already ruled in similar cases against Italy, Russia, Romania and Bulgaria. The judgment in Italy had a real impact on the situation of same-sex couples, because civil partnerships were introduced shortly after it.

SWITZERLAND

The first edition of the Intersex Legal Mapping Report published by ILGA World found that a large majority of U.N. member states have yet to make any sufficient legal attempt to protect intersex people’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy.

The report features an overview of how each of the 193 UN member states is faring regarding the protection of the human rights of intersex people. 

The study is a ground-breaking global survey on legal protections for people born with variations in sex characteristics. Intersex people are born with variations of sex characteristics, such as genitals, reproductive organs, hormonal and chromosomal patterns, that are more diverse than stereotypical definitions of male or female bodies. 

Up to 1.7 percent of the global population is born with such traits; yet, because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatized and subject to harmful practices – including in medical settings – and discriminated against.

“As of July 2023, only six UN member states adopted laws prohibiting unnecessary medical treatments, surgeries, and other interventions modifying the sex characteristics of intersex minors without their free, prior, and fully informed consent,” said Crystal Hendricks, chair of ILGA World’s Intersex Committee. “This striking dearth of legal protection is still a reality despite the unanimous, systematic, and urgent calls of intersex civil society and international human rights bodies. And yet, current positive trends give us reasons for hope.” 

ILGA World’s Intersex Legal Mapping Report documents how the past 15 years have seen a rapid increase in legal developments emerging to improve the situation of intersex individuals. As of July 2023, seven UN member states had introduced national legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sex characteristics; five states adopted legal provisions on liability for offenses committed on the same grounds and seven introduced other legal norms aiming to improve intersex people’s equal enjoyment of their human rights. In addition, there is a growing number of national and subnational legal developments aimed at addressing the needs of the intersex community.

JAPAN

Earlier this month one of Japan’s largest publishing companies announced that it was cancelling publication of the Japanese version of Abigail Shrier’s anti-transgender book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

The Tokyo-based Kadokawa Corporation said in a statement that the translated book could ultimately end up causing harm to people “directly involved with the Japanese trans community.”  The Japanese book’s title would translate as “that girl’s become transgender, too: The tragedy of the sex-change craze being contagious through social media.”

“We planned to publish the translation, hoping it would help readers in Japan deepen their discussions about gender through what is happening in Europe and the United States as well as other matters,” Kadokawa said.

“But the title and sales copy ended up causing harm to people directly involved” in transgender issues, the company said. “We sincerely apologize for it.”

PinkNewsUK reported that on X, formerly Twitter, there was a huge backlash against Kadokawa’s initial promotion of the book. Trans rights advocates planned a protest outside the publisher’s corporate headquarters in Tokyo, a move that has now been cancelled.

After the decision, one social media user wrote that while it was good that the book had been pulled, they worried that “future measures” to prevent similar incidents remain “unclear and unsatisfactory” so couldn’t be sure if Kadokawa’s apology to the trans community was genuine.  

Shrier, an opinion writer for The Wall Street Journal, took to X to share her displeasure that the “very nice” publisher had caved in PinkNewsUK added.

“By caving to an activist-led campaign against Irreversible Damage, they embolden the forces of censorship,” she wrote. “America has much to learn from Japan, but we can teach them how to deal with censorious cry-bullies.”

Additional reporting from Bergens Tidende, Agence France-Presse, the BBC,  Radio Free Europe, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, ILGA, PinkNewsUK and the Japan Times.