Living in a context in which the issue of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) civil rights continues to divide Australian politics, I was recently thrilled to discover that on the other side of the world, Uruguay, a small Latin American country, has passed a series of transformative laws that contribute to the citizenship rights of GLBT people.

On the 12th of October, the Uruguayan Senate passed legislation that allows transgender and transsexual people to change their names and sex on all legal documents (such as birth certificates, passports and national identification cards) to correspond with their gender identity. The legislation, which now awaits the signature of the left-wing president Tabaré Vasquez, states that: ‘Every person has the right to freely develop their personality in accordance with the proper identity of their gender, independent of their biological, genetic, anatomic … sex’.

The legislation follows a series of important legal transformations in Uruguay over the last several years. In May 2009, the law prohibiting non-heterosexual citizens from participation in the armed forces was overthrown. Further, in 2008, Uruguay legalised civil unions among same-sex couples under the ‘concubine union’ law. The law stipulates that those couples living together in partnership for at least five years have full civil rights regardless of their sex, gender or sexual orientation. Same-sex couples can now enjoy rights (and fulfil obligations) related to social security, pensions, inheritance, access to family health coverage, etc. Uruguay and Colombia are the only two Latin American countries to legalise same-sex civil unions at the national level.

Last month the Uruguayan senate passed legislation that allows same-sex couples the right to adopt children, Uruguay being the first Latin American country to do so. The legislation does not explicitly refer to same-sex partnerships but, rather, states that under the ‘concubine union’ law, those couples in a defacto or common-law union (regardless of their gender or sexual orientation) have adoption rights.

These recent changes in legislation have sparked considerable controversy and criticism from conservative political groups and the Catholic Church, particularly in relation to adoption laws. For instance, the Archbishop of Montevideo, Nicolas Cotugno, stated that: ‘To accept the adoption of children by homosexuals is to go against the nature of humanity’. He also suggested that: ‘Those who freely chose a life of homosexual relations have assumed a life style that is unconnected to procreation and to the ability to be parents’.

GLBT organisations have celebrated the changes in legislation as important steps towards granting full citizenship rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Uruguayans. However, GLBT groups have also made a variety of criticisms, particularly of modifications made to the gender identity legislation before it was passed by the Senate. In an earlier version of the legislation, the legal age to change documentation of one’s name and sex at birth was listed as 12, later being elevated to 18. According to the Uruguayan GLBT organisation Ovejas Negras (Black Sheep), this modification could be detrimental to transgender children who are forced to be raised and schooled in public contexts where their gender identities are not acknowledged. There have also been criticisms of the gender identity legislation based on the obstacle that it poses for the legality of same-sex marriage. While under the ‘concubine union’ law transgender citizens may access a civil union, they are prohibited from legally marrying somebody from the same sex, illustrating that transgender citizens in some ways will still be recognised according to their sex at birth.

Despite much support from GLBT and progressive political groups in Uruguay, the overall acceptance of new laws passed by Uruguay’s left-wing progressive government is unknown. Legal transformations have, however, come at an interesting time given that Uruguay’s national elections will occur on the 25th of October 2009.

At SexualityStudies.net we look forward to finding out how Uruguay continues to advance the rights of GLBT people and, further, whether stigma and homophobic and transphobic discrimination are diminished as a result.

Photo of Uruguayan flag courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.