{"id":523539,"date":"2024-05-17T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T09:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=523539"},"modified":"2025-12-13T22:43:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T21:43:01","slug":"a-third-gender-in-the-civil-register-not-so-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/policy\/switzerland\/a-third-gender-in-the-civil-register-not-so-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"A \u00abthird sex\u00bb in the civil register? Not so fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday's victory in the Eurovision Song Contest by Swiss artist Nemo, who defines herself as non-binary, has revived the idea of registering a \u00abthird gender\u00bb in the civil register. In reality, it's a false good idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This was Swiss artist Nemo's response to the online medium Le Matin<\/em> who asked him who he would like to call first after his victory at the 28th<\/sup> Eurovision contest in Malm\u00f6 on Saturday evening: \u00abI'd like to make an appointment with Federal Councillor Beat Jans (editor's note: head of the Justice and Police department)<\/em>. I bumped into him once, by chance, at an event. I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a coffee together, because in Switzerland there is no official recognition of the third gender, which I find unacceptable. We need to act to change this, and I believe that political representation is essential for people to feel included and for us to make progress as other countries have done.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note the use of the term \u00abgender\u00bb and not \u00absex\u00bb, while other voices - notably political - have been calling for the inclusion of a \u00abthird sex\u00bb in the civil register for some years now. This nuance is not at all insignificant. Biology is clear on this point: there are only two sexes in the human species. In genetic terms, too, which is one of the five ways of determining biological sex, there are those with a Y chromosome (men) and those without (women). The Swiss Civil Code stipulates that when a child is born, it must be assigned a gender on the basis of medical findings. No third sex is therefore possible under the current system. Quid<\/em> now if we're talking about a third gender, like Nemo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wealth of the individual<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If we replace the notion of sex with that of gender in civil status, and include the possibility of a third gender, we change the software: it's no longer publicly observable characteristics, but feelings, an unobservable feeling, that becomes the criterion for categorization. Yet the gender identity theorized by the social sciences admits of more than just three genders. In addition to non-binarity, there are people who feel both masculine and feminine, others who don't want to choose, still others who say they don't know, or whose gender is fluid. How, then, are we to name \u00abthis\u00bb third gender, and what provisions are to be made for this category of people in terms of military service obligations, for example, and all the other adaptations that need to be made to laws and the Constitution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n