Does the 3rd sex legally exist?

Does the 3rd sex legally exist?

A young girl I know recently explained to me that she is "non-binary", which means, if I've understood correctly, that she doesn't feel either male or female. She explained to me that in some European countries it is possible to remove the gender from identity papers or to have a 'gender neutral' designation. I find this astonishing: where are we in Switzerland on these issues?

F, Geneva

Your question is a topical one, since the Swiss Federal Council answered it only a few months ago, in a report published in December 2022. Basically, it considered that the social conditions for introducing a third gender or abandoning gender registration in Swiss civil registers had not yet been met.

Our government has pointed out that such a change would require numerous amendments to the Constitution and federal laws, as well as to cantonal and communal legislation, since many standards currently refer to the female and/or male sex (we are talking about a legal system based on thegender binarity).

Examples include one of the first articles of the Constitution, which states that men and women are equal before the law (art. 8), and the obligation to perform military service, which applies only to men (art. 59).

As things stand in Switzerland, when a child is born, it must be assigned a male or female sex based on medical findings, which must be recorded in the civil status register.

Furthermore, although the Swiss Civil Code has been amended and, since the beginning of 2022, has allowed anyone who is firmly and consistently convinced that they do not belong to the sex entered in the civil register to have this entry changed by "simply" making a declaration to the civil registrar (in other words, without going through legal proceedings), the choice is still limited to the two categories "male" and "female".

It is therefore not possible - as is the case in Germany, for example - to record the birth without mentioning the sex of the child or to delete this mention from the official registers at a later date.

The Federal Council has recognised, however, that the binarity of the sexes can pose problems for people who do not identify with one of the two traditionally known categories, so it is not out of the question that this issue will be raised again in parliamentary debates in the near future...

As we celebrate International Women's Day this week, we'd like to take the liberty of sending our best wishes to all readers who feel they belong to this sex, whether they consider it to be strong or weak, depending on what they believe. And as we look forward to International Men's Day next November, let's hope that everyone reaches out to each other, as in the song "3e sexe"!