(León) – Trans people in the Mexican state of Guanajuato experience discrimination in work and education and onerous legal impediments due to the state’s lack of legal gender recognition, Human Rights Watch and Amicus DH said today. Guanajuato should comply with Mexican and international law and create an administrative procedure to allow trans people to accurately reflect their self-declared gender identity on official documents.
Each of Mexico’s 32 states has the authority to determine its laws and policies in civil, family, and registration matters in accordance with the constitution. So it is up to the state legislature or administration to pass a law or enact an administrative decree that enables legal gender recognition through a simple administrative procedure at a state-level civil registry. Twenty Mexican states already have such a procedure. Guanajuato does not.
“Trans people in Guanajuato are disadvantaged in work and education and weighed down with legal proceedings due to state authorities’ undue delay in recognizing the right to gender identity,” said Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Guanajuato should align its laws with national and regional jurisprudence and establish a legal gender recognition procedure, which would reduce discrimination against transgender people in work,