The Toulouse Court of Appeal ruled for the first time on Wednesday February 9 that a transgender woman could be considered the mother of the child she had conceived with her partner before her sex changereports France Bleu Occitanie.
The couple, initially of heterosexual orientation, residing in the Hérault, has several children, but the last was born after the change of marital status of the husband who became a wife. It was then impossible to register the recognition of maternity of this transgender woman, because only the surrogate mother appeared on the civil status of the child. It was then necessary that this woman born man adopts her own biological daughter as a mother, which she refused.
In 2018, the Montpellier Court of Appeal ordered the mention of the transgender mother on the child’s birth certificate as “biological parent”, before a decision of the Court of Cassation in 2020 returned the case before the Toulouse Court of Appeal. It is this Court of Appeal which, on Wednesday, considered that two maternal filiations could be established.
The court referred in particular “the best interests of the child” and the “right to privacy” to justify his decision. These two principles, according to her, make it essential to allow the child born of a couple in which one of its members is transgender to have his filiation doubly established with regard to both parents. Invited on France Inter, Clelia Richard, Claire’s lawyer greeted “a victory of fundamental rights over the Civil Code which is obsolete on the law of filiation” : for her, “This decision will set an unambiguous precedent.”
“This is a major step forward for the rights of trans people.added Clelia Richard, this recognition is a first in France and in Europeshe greeted. This day is to be marked with a white stone on the calendar!”
“From now on, his child will be able to bear his last name, and that is a huge relief for this family”continues Clelia Richard, who however still points “inconsistencies and areas of lawlessness” in existing law today.