Dentons and Nextlaw referral network have teamed up with the International LGBTQI Youth & Student Organization (IGLYO) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation to launch a report on the legal rights of transgender youth.

Recognising youth

The guide, entitled “Only Adults? Good Practices in Legal Gender Recognition for Youth”, provides a user-friendly overview of best practices for legal gender recognition for people under 18 based on self-determination. The guide was launched to mark Transgender Awareness Week, observed annually between November 13 and 20. IGLYO is a European network of over 92 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth and student organizations. Run by young people for young people, it provides training, capacity building and advocacy. IGLYO members will use the guide to campaign and lobby for better gender recognition for minors across Council of Europe countries and within European institutions. Thomson Reuters Foundation’s legal clearinghouse, Trust Law, connected Dentons and Nextlaw to IGLYO. This project is the first fruit of the partnership between Trust Law and Nextlaw Referral Network, announced in September of this year. “This research is uniquely valuable in its focus on the rights of young people,” said Tudor Kovacs, programs manager at IGLYO. “The research goes beyond the current legal landscape to provide a detailed account of the journey to adopting accessible and rights-based gender recognition laws for young people.”

Pan-European input

The report involved legal research across eight European jurisdictions as well as interviews with LGBT+ activists. Lamin Khadar, Europe pro bono manager, and Bernadette O’Sullivan, UK&ME csr manager led the Dentons team which coordinated the project and drafted the report. Dentons teams in Paris, Brussels and London provided pro bono input on the legislation in France, Belgium and the UK. Nextlaw Referral Network member firms LK Shields, Gómez-Acebo y Pombo, and Fenech Farrugia Fiott carried out the research on Ireland, Portugal and Malta respectively. Other contributors included Latham & Watkins in Denmark and Vaar Advokat in Norway. This project is part of Dentons’ ongoing pro bono partnership with IGLYO, which started in 2018. The report is available here.