On 8 June, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the deletion of the gender information from civil status and birth records is not compatible with federal law.

The Court explained that registrations or deletions that had already been made abroad are not relevant for Switzerland, and that the current law makes it impossible to keep a blank entry in the civil status register or to enter a third gender.

At the beginning of 2022, the parliament decided that the binary gender order of woman and man should be maintained for the time being and the omission of an indication of gender should not be allowed.

Futhermore, an amendment to the Federal Act on Private International Law also expressly renounced the recognition of a third gender or the omission of a gender indication in the civil status register.

Any legal regulations would ultimately have to be changed by the parliament. This was the first ruling of the Federal Supreme Court on this issue.

Possible in Germany, not in Switzerland

The case started when an intersex woman in her thirties wanted to change her first name and have the "F" of female removed from her official documents.

Both requests were accepted in 2019 in Germany, where she lives. She then applied to the authorities of her hometown canton of Aargau, where, for the first time in Switzerland, her official first name change was authorised. To leave the gender box blank was not allowed.

That is why the young artist took her case to the canton's Higher Court in 2021, which ruled in her favour. That decision was then challenged by the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) before the Federal Court, leading to this final decision.