The changes proposed Wednesday by Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette to the overhaul of the Civil Code were greeted with a sigh of relief in the LGBTQ + community. Bill 2 and its articles on gender identity can still be improved, however, plead organizations in the community.
The Minister of Justice made public at the end of the afternoon the amendments mentioned in the pages of the To have to, Saturday. As expected, the chosen one brings together under the same heading the notions of gender identity and sex identity. Once adopted, the bill will allow Quebecers to choose whether the acronym “F”, for female, “M”, for male, or “X”, for non-binary, will appear on their civil status documents.
The articles which planned to require an operation of the sexual organs to modify its mention of sex disappear. “I heard the different groups and their concerns,” underlined the Minister of Justice, Mr. Jolin-Barrette, on Wednesday.
” This is a good thing. It helps to prevent trans people from being immediately identified as trans,” said Celeste Trianon, from the Center for the Fight Against Gender Oppression. His organization took legal action last year to amend the Civil Code of Quebec. The resulting Quebec Superior Court decision — signed by Justice Gregory Moore — blamed the current legislative framework for defining sexual and gender identity too narrowly.
By tabling his Bill 2 last fall, Minister Jolin-Barrette said he wanted to fill the legal void created by the Moore judgment. It therefore created the distinct concept of “gender identity”, which would have allowed a trans or non-binary person to register the acronym “M”, “F” or “X” on their official documents. However, by retaining the “sex designation”, the bill threatened to create coming out forced,” several LGBTQ+ advocacy groups observed.
By stepping back on these specific articles, the minister “conforms to the Moore judgment”, nuanced Florence Gallant-Chenel, of the TransEstrie organization. “We are advancing the rights of trans people, but the minister is doing what he is legally obliged to do. »
The director general of the Quebec LGBT Council, Ariane Marchand-Labelle, welcomed the adjustments made by the government of the Coalition avenir Québec. However, the minister’s reaction was slow, she said.
“It’s a bit: ‘all that for that’. If we had been spoken to beforehand, we could have avoided a lot of work, ”she said.
“There are hours that have been put on it, added Florence Gallant-Chenel. These are resources that cannot be redistributed into community services. »
” Terrible “
Bill 2 is the first part of the family law reform desired by Minister Jolin-Barrette. In its original form, the legislation provided for imposing additional conditions on persons wishing to change the sex designation on their vital statistics documents, such as their birth certificate. Such a request should have been accompanied by “a certificate from the attending physician confirming that the medical treatments and surgical interventions undergone by the plaintiff make it possible to conclude that there has been a structural modification of the sexual organs”.
In Quebec, the requirement for surgery for a change of sex designation has not been in effect since 2015. In the days following the tabling of the bill, several groups denounced a historic setback in terms of of civil law.
“It was terrible, remembered Celeste Trianon when asked about the days that followed the tabling of the bill. [Les amendements font] that Quebec will no longer be in last place. We won’t be late anymore. »
The detailed study of Bill 2 must continue over the next few days.