Legislation allowing people to change the sex registered on their birth certificates and other official documents without having to undergo “sex change” operations is set to come before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection in coming weeks.

The Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton (pictured), made the announcement at the opening session of the fourth European Transgender Council meeting in Dublin yesterday. Ms Burton said enacting such legislation was a priority for her.

Transgender campaigners from across Europe are in Dublin for the council meeting, which will continue over the weekend and is hosted by the Transgender Equality Network Ireland.

Ms Burton said her legal section had received guidance from the Attorney General’s office in the past week.

The Government is committed to introducing legislation to allow those who believe they were born into the wrong sex to alter official documents. This follows a 2007 High Court ruling which said that Ireland’s failure to allow such people to change these documents was in breach of their human rights.

The Government’s proposed legislation – adapted from the last Government – would require applicants to have lived with their preferred gender for at least two years.

If applicants can provide a formal medical diagnosis of their condition they do not have to undergo a ‘sex change’ operation, meaning they would not have to have the sexual organs of the sex into which they were born removed.

Applicants must also be over 18 and they must not be in a subsisting marriage or civil partnership.

Under the proposed bill, an independent three member “Gender Recognition” Panel will be established, which will assess applications. A legal “Gender Recognition” Certificate will be issued along with a new birth cert.

The bill sets out that a person whose gender has been legally recognised would be entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex, or to enter a civil partnership with a person of the same sex.

Other countries have different requirements. For example, Germany requires that a person undergo a sex change operation before their official documentation will be changed.

The proposed Irish law will be modeled on the UK law which is among the most liberal in Europe.