Montenegro still requires trans people to be sterilised to change their documents, activist warns

Montenegro still has a serious problem with legal gender recognition, because trans people must undergo sterilisation before they can bring their identity documents in line with who they are, warns Jovan Ulićević, executive director of Spektra, a Podgorica-based NGO that works for trans, intersex and gender-diverse people.

“We still live in a country where someone has to be sterilised to get an ID card. To me, that is abnormal,” Ulićević said on Montenegro’s TV E.

“If you have to go through forced sterilisation just to get an ID card and a passport that match your identity and appearance, then we have a serious problem,” he added.

Speaking ahead of the 14th Montenegro Pride, held under the slogan “We will live, for life’s sake”, Ulićević said it was progress that Pride now takes place without tear gas, police cordons, stones and flares. “That means Pride has become part of Montenegro’s social fabric, but nothing beyond that,” he stressed.

He noted that Montenegro, an EU candidate country, has taken real steps in recent years, from banning hate speech and hate crimes to passing the Law on Life Partnership of Same-Sex Couples. The problem, he said, is that these laws have not fully come to life.

“The law on same-sex partnerships was adopted in 2020, but its implementation has not gone much further than the possibility of entering a partnership. The whole set of rights it was supposed to guarantee could not be exercised for a long time, because amendments to other laws were not adopted,” Ulićević explained.

He pointed out that Montenegro’s constitution guarantees human rights and that the country has laws against discrimination and on gender equality. “Montenegro is obliged to apply the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and with EU membership it will also have to apply the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union,” he concluded.

Montenegro Pride will be held in Podgorica on 3 October, with Pride Week starting on 28 September.

Source: portalanalitika.me. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.