A French appeals court has overturned a landmark decision that recognised a third gender for a person born with both male and female genitalia, reports The Guardian.
A lower court ruled in August 2015 that an intersex plaintiff who was designated male at birth, could use the term “neutral gender” on personal official documents.
However, magistrates at the Orléans appeals court south-west of Paris on Tuesday ruled that to accept the plaintiff’s request “would require recognising, in the guise of a simple rectification of his personal records, the existence of another sexual category.”
Mila Petkova, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said her client, who has asked to remain anonymous, was “very disappointed” with the court’s decision.
“This is an additional violence inflicted on my client,” she said, adding she would take the case to France’s court of last resort and if necessary to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.
According to his doctor the plaintiff, 64, was born with a “rudimentary vagina” and a “micropenis” but no testicles.
He approached the courts as he did not want such an “unequivocal” designation as male or female.
The prosecutor who appealed the initial decision said he did so not because he fiercely opposed it but because he felt a higher ruling was necessary in a case that has “collided with current laws”.
The appeals court said it was necessary to find “a fair balance between the protection of the state of persons, which is a public issue, and respect for the private lives of people with a variation of sexual development.”