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PARIS — France’s top court ruled on Thursday against granting an
intersex person born with a genital malformation the right to be
recognized by the state as being of a “neutral” sex.

The plaintiff, going by the name Gaëtan Schmitt, was registered
at birth as a man but has argued he perceives his sexual
identity as being neither female nor male.

Mr. Schmitt, a 66-year-old psychotherapist, first took legal
action in 2015 to obtain civil status as “neutral sex.” A
regional court in Tours granted him the status, but the decision
was overturned on appeal by a court in Orléans in 2016.

The plaintiff, who is married and has adopted a child, brought
the case to the Cour de Cassation, France’s supreme court, this
year.

The court upheld the Orléans court’s decision, ruling that the
distinction between male and female was “necessary to the social
and legal organization, of which it is a cornerstone,” and that
the “recognition of a neutral gender” would have “deep
repercussions” on French law and would entail “numerous
legislative changes.”

The judges did not detail what the repercussions would be. A
prosecutor for the court wrote in a recommendation that it was
not “up to the judge to create new legal categories of persons,”
but that “such social issues necessitate a broad democratic
debate.”

Bertrand Périer, Mr. Schmitt’s lawyer, called the ruling a
“missed opportunity.” “I don’t see why France’s social or legal
organization would necessitate gender binarism,” he said in a
phone interview.

Unlike other sexuality-related issues, the question of whether a
third category recognizing a neutral sex should exist has been
subject to little debate in France.

In 2012 and 2013, the country clashed over whether to grant gay
couples the right to marry, with millions of people, many of
them conservative Catholics, protesting in Paris. Same-sex
marriage was legalized in April 2013, after more than 100 hours
of debate in Parliament.

There was little debate over whether transsexual people should
be given the right to have their sex reassigned as a civil
status. A 2016 law removed conditions denounced by transgender-
rights organizations as hurdles in the legal process, including
having to undergo medical treatment.

Mr. Schmitt was raised by his parents as a boy because his
mother had wanted one, Mr. Périer said. In his mid-30s, as part
of a treatment for the bone disease osteoporosis, he took
hormones that gave him the appearance of a man.

About 200 babies are born every year in France with a medical
condition of sex development disorder, or one in 4,000 births,
according to a 2017 parliamentary report.

Since 2011, people born with a sex development disorder can have
their sex assignment postponed, but only within a maximum period
of two years.

A court in Germany last year rejected the creation of a third
sex category. Only a few countries in the world have created
such a category, including Australia, Nepal, India and New
Zealand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/world/europe/neutral-sex- gender-france.html?mabReward=ACTM7&recp=2
 

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