Germany has become the first European country to allow parents of babies born with no clearly-defined gender characteristics to leave the ‘male/female’ field on birth certificates blank, creating a ‘third sex’ category in the public register.
The law, passed in August, comes into force on November 1. It was prompted by results of a 2012 study by the German Ethics Council, which found the rights of intersex people weren’t protected well enough.
The legislation is meant to prevent parents from making hasty decisions on controversial genital surgeries for their not-entirely-male-or-female newborns, done to make one of the two gender characteristics prevail.
