(Mexico City) – Trans people in the Mexican state of Guanajuato suffer economic, medical, and labor discrimination, as well as other onerous legal impediments because the state has no process for issuing identity documents consistent with their gender, Human Rights Watch said in a documentary released today. The authorities of Guanajuato should immediately institute a technique that will allow trans people to represent their self-declared gender identity on official documents.
Following International Transgender Day of Visibility, Amicus DH and I produced The Keys to My Liberty. It follows the experiences of Ivanna Tovar and Kassandra Mendoza, two trans people who have fought to have their identity and labels recognized in Guanajuato. Eight more express transgender people share their own illustrious experience with prejudice and positive messages.
The film demonstrates how transgender individuals in Guanajuato are depressed in both work and school and subject to legal action because of the government’s “unnecessarily slow” recognition of their gender identity, according to Cristian González Cabrera, senior scholar at Human Rights Watch. A legitimate female recognition process that will reduce discrimination should be immediately established by the chancellor and state congress.
Each of Mexico’s 32 states has the authority to determine its laws and policies in legal, community, and registration issues in accordance with the constitution. The state government or state government has the authority to pass a regulation or issue an operational decree that allows for the recognition of gender equality through a straightforward administrative procedure at a state-level civil registry. Twenty-one Latino states currently have for a procedure. Guanajuato does not.
In the film about Kassandra Mendoza’s lack of documents that reflect her gender identity, Kassandra Mendoza claims that it has been difficult to find a job. “Employers see my documents, then they see me and say, ‘This doesn’t add up.’ I’ve been made enjoyment of, I’ve actually been insulted”.
Ivanna Tovar says in the documentary:” Without a gender identity reform, we [trans people] cannot work in a dignified manner because we are violated, because we are not called by the [legal] names that appear in our documents, and [dealing with that] is the state’s responsibility”. She described gender recognition as her “keys to [her] freedom”.
In October 2021, a state lawmaker, Dessire Ángel Rocha, introduced a legitimate identity recognition costs, but the act has never advanced in the current government. Past gender identification charges presented in February 2019, October 2019, and April 2021 even did not advance.
The state legislature was unwilling to take up legislation affecting Gay people’s right up until next month. The position adopted the Rules for People of Sexual and Gender Diversity in February 2024. It aims to establish coordination mechanisms between different officials, as well as guiding rules, “to promote, protect and continually guarantee” the privileges of LGBT people. However, this transformation did not address gender identification for transgender people.
In April 2022, Human Rights Watch and Amicus DH conducted interviews with 31 trans people from Guanajuato status in León, Irapuato, and Guanajuato area, as well as mildly, to understand and document the damage caused by a state’s lack of legal gender recognition. They discovered that trans people face serious economic, legal, health, and other issues because there isn’t a legal gender recognition process in Guanajuato.
Transgender people must file a burdensome legal action in states like Guanajuato to force the state to recognize their gender identity on the basis of Supreme Court decisions and international law in states like Guanajuato without the legal process for gender recognition. The injunction can be a lengthy and expensive procedure that calls for the assistance of an experienced attorney.
In a successful case, the judge orders the civil registry to permanently seal a trans person’s original birth certificate, meaning it is no longer readily accessible in its information systems, and to issue a corrected certificate. A voter registration card, tax number, or passport must be obtained in order to obtain this new state birth certificate.
According to an advisory opinion issued in 2017, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated that states must establish straightforward and effective legal gender recognition procedures based on self-identification without imposing invasive and pathologizing requirements. The decision is a legally binding interpretation of the Mexican Human Rights Act.
The Mexican Supreme Court rendered a landmark decision in 2019 that included precise instructions for how to recognize legal gender. The court said that this must be an administrative process that “meets the standards of privacy, simplicity, expeditiousness, and adequate protection of gender identity” set by the Inter-American Court.
All lower federal courts are bound by the Supreme Court decision. According to the court, state authorities should make sure trans people can update their legal documents through an administrative process to comply with the constitution. The court expanded the legal gender recognition right to include children and adolescents in 2022.
“The trans people who shared their stories in the documentary are just a few of the many trans people who are suffering from the state’s lack of gender recognition,” González said. Guanajuato should take into account activists’ demands and Mexican law and join the majority of Mexican states that uphold the rights of their gender minorities by instituting a formal gender recognition system.
