Following 6 years of legal battle over the daughter’s birth certificate, on Wednesday, September 16, the Court of Cassation rejected a transgender person’s appeal to be listed as a second mother.
After the birth of his first two children, the Frenchman who now goes by the name Claire, had his civil registration modified to reflect his gender reassignment as a female, prior to his sex change operation.
Thus, while his male genital organs were still intact, the couple conceived a third child, but Claire has refused to be registered as the child’s father on the birth certificate and has filed court claims to be recognized as the mother.
According to the French newspaper, “Le Figaro”, the Court of Cassation ruled that
“a transgender man turned woman, who procreates with his male gametes, following the modification of the civil registration, retains the right to claim a biological relationship with the child.” But this can only be accomplished by “using the means of declaring filiation reserved for the father”.
The Court also added that these provisions “coincide with the best interests of the child” since the child’s filiation with both parents is registered and it attests “to the actual conditions of the child’s conception and birth”. The judgment specifies that this solution guarantees “the right to know one’s personal origins”. Since the couple had two other children before Claire’s change of gender was recorded on the civil registration, the French high court also held the little girl’s civil registration needed to be coherent “with that of her elder brother and sister” in order to avoid “discrimination between siblings”.
The lawyers representing “Claire” intend to submit the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
