Austrian court to consider 3rd gender identity in records

BERLIN – Austria’s constitutional Court says it will consider whether a third gender should be an option for official records, taking up the case of a person who unsuccessfully sought to have their entry changed to “inter” or a similar word.

The court said in a statement on Monday that an initial review raised concerns that having to list one’s gender as female or male contravenes the privacy protections enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The highest court in neighbouring Germany ruled in November that people must be allowed to appear in official records as neither male nor female. It said authorities should create a third identity or scrap gender entries altogether.

It gave the German government until the end of this year to address the issue.