The Digester

EU court orders member states to issue IDs matching transgender peoples lived gender

Mar 12th 2026

The European Court of Justice has ruled EU countries must allow transgender citizens to change official identification to reflect their lived gender, finding national rules that block such changes conflict with EU law.

  • The European Court of Justice ruled that official documents must reflect a persons lived gender to avoid considerable inconveniences in travel and daily life.
  • Bulgarias Supreme Court of Cassation referred the case after lower courts said officials could not change a persons name, gender or national registry number.
  • The ECJ found that national laws preventing gender data changes for citizens who have exercised the right to freedom of movement breach EU law.
  • The case, which began in 2017, will return to Bulgarias courts to establish how to provide corrected identification documents.
  • The ruling will affect other EU countries that issue documents using only a persons gender at birth, including Hungary and Slovakia.

Articles