The bill that was supposed to pave the way for the possibility is not among those planned for the coming parliamentary year.
– In light of the Danish Council of Ethics’ deliberations to the Parliament’s Gender Equality Committee on this issue in particular, the Government has found it necessary to consider further, reads a written response from the Ministry of the Interior to Jyllands-Posten.
The change of course arouses criticism from the support parties, the Radicals, the Socialist People’s Party and the Unity List.
– It is a pity, because when the government presented the proposal, there was a majority, and many were enthusiastic. Especially the children who, when they go to the doctor, for example, are greeted with why they look like a girl when they are a boy on their social security number, says the Radicals’ gender equality spokesperson, Samira Nawa, to Ritzau.
– These were the children we wanted to help, and these are the children who are experiencing a huge failure on the part of the government, she says.
It was the then Minister for Gender Equality Mogens Jensen (S) who last year in August prior to Copenhagen Pride presented the play “Freedom to diversity”.
It should make it possible to change the last number in the civil registration number. Either from girl to boy or vice versa.
Today it is only possible for people who have reached the age of 18.
At SF, gender equality spokesperson Astrid Carøe calls it an “annoying reversal”.
– It is not many months ago that the government agreed that it was still the government’s position that it wanted legal gender reassignment without an age limit, she says.
The Danish Council of Ethics supports lowering the age limit. But while the government proposed that there should be none at all, a large majority in the council points out that the limit should go at 10-12 years.
At the Department of Human Rights, the sociologist and head of the department’s work on gender equality and LGBT + Morten Emmerik Wøldike believe that it must be possible to change legal gender regardless of age.
– It will not only increase the children’s self-determination, but also strengthen the acceptance of the transgender person’s identity among family and friends and in society, he says to Ritzau.
He points out that a lower age limit does not correspond to the fact that children can already today be referred for examination and possibly be treated with hormones.
They can also switch to a name that better suits their gender identity.
– But when the children have to show their social security number, for example when they have to pick up a package or receive a new passport, they experience that the social security number does not match their gender identity, says Morten Emmerik Wøldike.
He points out that it is difficult to set an age for when children become aware of their gender identity, as research is still new and limited.
But in a 2020 Als’ research, 71 percent of transgender adults said they had thought about their gender identity before the age of 15.
27 percent already before the age of eight.