The Court of Cassation refuses that a transgender woman is considered the mother of her daughter

Claire has been hanging on to successive court decisions for more than six years, called to determine the exact terms of her filiation with her daughter.

This transgender 50-year-old claims the right to be officially considered her mother, arguing that when the child was born in 2014 (naturally, because Claire had retained the functionality of her male sexual organs), it had already been three years that she was recognized as a woman by civil status.

The Court of Cassation did not end, as Claire hoped, her legal marathon: this Wednesday, the court rejected her appeal and refused that she could be recognized as one of the girl's two mothers.

A cold shower for this inhabitant of the South of France, while in June, the general counsel of the Court of Cassation spoke in favor of this recognition, adding however the possibility that the change of sex be specified.

A legal vacuum

In its judgment, the Court of Cassation finally argued that several provisions of the Civil Code “oppose two maternal filiations being established with regard to the same child, except for adoption.

She also considers that Claire "is not deprived of the right to have a biological filiation link recognized with the child, but can only do so by having recourse to the methods of establishing filiation reserved for the father.

"

The court, which referred the case to the Toulouse Court of Appeal, however recognizes a legal void, indicating that "no text regulates the mode of establishing the filiation of the children generated" after a change of sex in civil status.

So far, only two solutions were available to parents in a similar situation: keep the status of father, or adopt her own child as a second mother, which Claire has always refused to do.

A "daily damage"

In 2018, the Montpellier Court of Appeal, which it had requested, ruled in an unprecedented way for a compromise that displeased the fifty-year-old: to include the mention of "biological parent" in the civil status.

It is this judgment which is the subject of an appeal and that the Court of Cassation decided to quash this Wednesday, considering that the instance "could not create a new category in the civil status".

"My client wants us to take into account the reality of the civil status of each of the parents, she is a woman for civil status, so the State and the Republic must recognize her as a mother", commented to from the Parisian, Claire's lawyer, Maître Mathieu Stoclet, depicting a "long-term fight".

Newsletter - Most of the news

Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien

I'm registering

Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.

Learn more

The lawyer, who spoke before the decision of the Court of Cassation, reports that his client suffers from "damage on a daily basis".

“It's a complicated process as the change of identity, she is 50 years old, she has always lived in a body that was not the right body and finally wants to live like a woman and like a mother, normally.

He said he was ready if the appeal is rejected, to seize the European Court of Human Rights.