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UN, General Assembly : Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez

In many countries transgender persons are required to undergo often unwanted sterilization surgeries as a prerequisite to enjoy legal recognition of their preferred gender. In Europe, 29 States require sterilization procedures to recognize the legal gender of transgender persons. In 11 States where there is no legislation regulating legal recognition of gender,108 enforced sterilization is still practised. As at 2008, in the United States of America, 20 states required a transgender person to undergo “gender-confirming surgery” or “gender reassignment surgery” before being able to change their legal sex.109 In Canada, only the province of Ontario does not enforce “transsexual surgery” in order to rectify the recorded sex on birth certificates.110 Some domestic courts have found that not only does enforced surgery result in permanent sterility and irreversible changes to the body, and interfere in family and reproductive life, it also amounts to a severe and irreversible intrusion into a person‟s physical integrity. In 2012, the Swedish Administrative Court of Appeals ruled that a forced sterilization requirement to intrude into someone‟s physical integrity could not be seen as voluntary.111 In 2011, the Constitutional Court in Germany ruled that the requirement of gender reassignment surgery violated the right to physical integrity and self-determination.112 In 2009, the Austrian Administrative High Court also held that mandatory gender reassignment, as a condition for legal recognition of gender identity, was unlawful.113 In 2009, the former Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe observed that “[the involuntary sterilization] requirements clearly run counter to the respect for the physical integrity of the person”.114


The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments, including forced genital-normalizing surgery, involuntary sterilization, unethical experimentation, medical display, “reparative therapies” or “conversion therapies”, when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned. He also calls upon them to outlaw forced or coerced sterilization in all circumstances and provide special protection to individuals belonging to marginalized groups.


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Source : http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf