Gov't to embrace transgenders
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Tuesday May 24, 2022 05:57
In what could be a progressive move, government will at least by July next year table an Amendment Bill of the Births and Deaths before Parliament in a bid to harmonise laws concerning transgender people.
Chief State Counsel at the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Thami Selitshena told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recently that government recognises that there are people who are born without a defined sex cell.
As such, he said plans are underway to reform laws that will allow sex-change easier for them once they get a defined sex cell at a later stage of their life.
“We have sent instructions for the amendment of the Births and Deaths Act, which instructions the Attorney General has acknowledged, and we are working closely with. We have recognised because of cases that have appeared before our courts that there are people who are transgender and that there are people who are born without a defined sex cell,” Selitshena said.
He explained that the proposed law will seek to note at birth that such a person does not have a defined sex cell, so they are not registered with a gender-specific identity.
“We will note at birth that they do not have a defined sex cell, and we will not consider them as male or female so that when the sex cell develops, the Registrar of Births and Deaths will be empowered to now register them of their preferred or the developed sex cell,” he added.
Furthermore, Selitshena indicated that government has realised that the modern society is inclusive, and as such there have to be laws in place to harmonise the choices of everyone.
“Some people may as they grow decide to change their sex appeal, so this act will make lives easier for all our citizens,” he stated.
He said the Bill is still at the drafting stage and is expected to be ready for tabling before Parliament in July 2023 or the earliest in the November 2022 sitting. Selitshena was enlightening PAC on the matter after a question by acting chairperson of the PAC Mephato Reatile, who wanted to know what the ministry was doing to harmonise laws to allow transgender people to change sex identities without going through the court.
Reatile said government should realise that sex characteristics of a person vary in nature and all persons must be empowered to make their decisions affecting their own bodily integrity and physical autonomy.
He said it was worrying that people were subjected to unfair treatment as they are forced to seek orders to change their sex identities.
In 2017, a transgender woman Tshepo Kgositau took government to court after she was denied changing the gender marker on her Identity Card (Omang) from male to female.
The Gaborone High Court ruled in her favour, ordering the Registrar of Births and Deaths to amend the registers to reflect Kgositau as female, not as male.