Legal gender recognition: An unexplained delay by the Botswana government
Legal gender recognition has pleased the courts. The High Court of Botswana in 2017 handed down the ND v. the Attorney General judgment stating that refusing to enable transgender persons to change their gender marker without resorting to litigation violates an individual’s rights to identity, dignity, privacy, protection from discrimination, degrading and inhuman treatment, freedom of expression, association and assembly.
In 2021, the Botswana Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s judgment to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations.
Progress to facilitate legal gender recognition in Botswana is extremely slow and, to an extent, non-existent. Following the 2017 judgment, the Southern Africa Litigation Center and the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana developed a policy brief to guide the government in establishing procedural and administrative processes to ensure that transgender persons can have legal gender recognition.
Legal gender recognition is about breaking down walls and building bridges for inclusion Legal gender recognition refers to the process by which transgender people can legally change the gender marker on their official identification documents to reflect their gender identity.
