Bulgaria - February 2023

The Bulgarian Supreme Court ruled that transgender people will be banned from legally changing their gender. In the absence of an official policy on gender recognition, rulings were inconsistent and heavily dependent on judges’ personal interpretations. The new ruling comes following the Constitutional Court’s decision two years ago, which specified that the Bulgarian legislation understands gender as determined at birth and existing only in the sense of biological sex. Rights activists called the decision a populist ruling that shows regression in the country’s judicial system and warned that this move could trigger a wave of new cases against Bulgaria in the European Court of Human Rights, and in the European Court of Justice.

Sources: Balkan Insight, Euractiv