A step towards queer justice in Tunisia

Changing the Gender Marker in Official Documents

In a context dominated by fixed identities and binary narratives, changing the gender marker in official documents is a fundamental demand in the struggle of trans+ individuals for legal and social recognition. This update is not merely an administrative adjustment it represents an acknowledgment of trans people's right to exist, to live, and to belong without guardianship or conditions.

Legal Recognition as a Tool Against Discrimination

By changing the gender marker, trans individuals gain documents that reflect their lived gender reality, which reduces instances of coercive questioning, exclusion, and repeated violations in public and institutional spaces. It is a step that reinforces the right to dignity and limits symbolic and physical violence, including torture, inflicted when a person’s gender identity does not align with what appears on their official documents.

Safe Access to Public Services

Structural discrimination in health, education, and administrative institutions is often entrenched through documents that enforce rigid gendered readings. Changing the gender marker helps break this constraint and allows trans+ individuals to access services without fear of exclusion or institutional violence.

Mental Health and Self-Affirmation

Legal recognition of one’s gender identity fosters a sense of belonging and safety. A single document bearing the correct name and gender marker can be life-changing for someone who lives daily under doubt, marginalization, and the need to constantly justify their existence.

The Queer Dimension of Legal Struggle

Demanding gender marker change is inseparable from the broader queer struggle that aims to dismantle oppressive gender systems and question legal authority over our bodies, choices, and identities. It is an act of resistance against reducing gender to narrow medical, religious, or legal criteria and against rendering queer existence as exceptional or abnormal.

In Tunisia, the Need Is Urgent

Despite some individual initiatives and legal attempts, Tunisia still lacks a clear legal framework that enables trans+ individuals to change their gender marker smoothly and without onerous conditions. Amid rising conservative rhetoric and attempts to criminalize queer existence, the fight for legal gender transition becomes part of a larger struggle tied to the right to life, dignity, and gender justice.

Author:  

Maram Ben Dhafer

Feminist, queer activist, and founding member of Trans Unity Coalition Tunisia