Evolution of Quebec's legislation on rectification of sex mention on official documents for transgender people in the Canadian context

Abstract

As mentioned in my first research report (February 2019), the increase in the number of countries that have regulate the rectification of the sex mention for trans persons without forcing them to go through unwanted surgical procedures seems to indicate a greater acceptance of the trans-affirmative approach of gender identity, in replacement of the traditional medical one. However, it also compels us to reflect on the limits of the formal legal changes on the living conditions of gender minorities. By countering the prevailing social norms, trans people experience reduced life chances by unequal access to fundamental rights, ranging from the right to life and physical integrity to the right to health, education, and work. Despite the potential improvement of their status by the formal possibility of rectifying their legal sex mention, they continue to be exposed to alarming rates of discrimination, violence, and deprivation of civil and social rights, both in Quebec (and more broadly in Canada) and in Brazil. Both in Brazil and in Quebec, the legal situation regarding trans people doesn't seem to be adequately reformed, especially when considered inter-sectional factors of vulnerability affecting trans people. Some of these factors, even if with diverse weight because of other intermingled social factors, are similarly relevant for both social realities, as the situation of trans kids and youths without parental support. Others inter-sectional factors are particularly relevant for the Brazilian society, as the level of education and access to formal institutions of Brazilian population in general and gender minorities in special, and the citizenship status for trans people in Quebec.These and other contrasts and similarities of the scope and the limits of the legal changes in Quebec and Brazil (2015 and 2018, respectively), will be my main focus of research during my internship, which will be privileged by the fact that many of these questions are questioned by the plaintiffs of the process currently filled against Quebec's government, questions that don't had been addressed by the Brazilian Supreme Court when deciding the ADI n. 4275, and that will undoubtedly motivate judicial claims. This kind of North-South law comparison that considers not only legal variances, but also cultural, political and socioeconomic intermingled aspects of law effectiveness are profoundly favored by the internship presently demanded.It's this rooted-understanding of Quebec legal and social reality that I intend to partially overcome during my stay abroad.