If a political party intends to nominate a trans person for a position of mayor, councilor or trustee, it must do so according to their registered sex and not according to their self-perceived gender.
In the event that a group does not comply with this rule and presents the nomination ballots without complying with total parity in the positions of popular election, there would be no other way out for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), than to annul all the candidacies.
And it is that despite the fact that the electoral council already allows the change of name by self-perceived gender in the identity cards and that the sex of the identity document was eliminated, there is a legal vacuum that would prevent the TSE from complying with all the demands of the trans population, explained Andrei Cambronero, a lawyer for the electoral council.
“In a 2019 resolution, the TSE warns that it is important that all rights for trans people be recognized, but this particular issue is reserved by law; that is, it is beyond the powers of the electoral body. For example, what to do with people who are gender fluid, intersex or queer?” Cambronero said.
This week, the TSE announced the rules for the parties to nominate the same number of men and women for the mayoral elections, which would imply a record number of women elected starting next year.In the penultimate elections, a trans woman ran for deputy for the Vamos party and the TSE assigned her a male position.
Gender fluidity
A gender fluid person is someone who identifies between, or beyond, the extremes of the male-female spectrum, or who identifies as both male and female, or a combination of genders.
Intersex refers to biological aspects of the body, not gender identity or sexual orientation. Intersex people have different sexual orientations and gender identities, and one does not depend on the other, while the term queer refers to all those people who feel, live and identify not because of their gender or sexual orientation.
Not well received by the Trans community
The TSE’s decision was not well received by the Trans community in Costa Rica, who asserted that once again their rights are being violated, while society imposes a gender that does not correspond to them.
“We are sending a bad social message, because we are replicating discrimination. They exclude us from the elections and put us in a genre that is not ours. They are replicating violence and exposing us to society defining where they want to place us. It is bad news and an offense to human rights, to women in our diversity. Regardless of the position you are applying for, the most important thing is the integrity of the people. For the penultimate elections, a colleague Dayana Hernández ran for deputy and had to do so in a male position because the TSE violated her rights,” said KeyraMartínez, president of the Transvida group.
