Basque court allows name change for transgender four-year-old

A court in the Basque Country has allowed a name change for a four-year-old child who was born a boy but who feels like a girl and wants to be addressed as such.

Officially registered at birth as Luken, the child’s name will now be changed to Lucía.

Everyone in the small village of Asteasu (in Gipuzkoa province), had already been calling the child Lucía, even at school.

Forty minors have formally requested a name change in Spain for similar reasons, and 30 have achieved it

The decision by a Tolosa court is the second such case in the Basque Country. In 2013, a court in Vitoria ruled similarly.

The judge based his decision on the need to “adjust Luken’s social reality to his reality on the records,” and also on the fact that there is a medical report certifying that the minor suffers from gender identity disorder.

An association of families with transgender children, Chrysallis, announced the Tolosa court’s decision in a press release.

“Lucia was erroneously given a boy’s name based on her genitals, but as soon as she was able to express herself, she began manifesting that she was a girl,” reads the statement.

The medical report states that there is “a discordance between the morphological or physiological gender initially accredited in the records and the gender identity as felt by the applicant.”

The association says that 40 minors have formally requested a name change in Spain for similar reasons, and that 30 have achieved it. However, “there is no common criteria and the decision is left up to each judge.”

Chrysallis wants specific legislation to allow transgender children to change their names and “guarantee respect for their fundamental rights.”

English version by Susana Urra.