In Austria, six options for specifying one's own gender are to be available in the future when reporting to the authorities.

The government in Vienna decided that last week.

According to the draft for an amendment to the Registration Act, in future it should be possible to choose between the designations "male", "female", "diverse", "inter", "open" and "no information".

So far, only the first two options were provided.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The government formed by the Christian Democratic ÖVP and the Greens is thus complying with a ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2018.

It had ruled that people whose gender is not clearly male or female had the right to be entered in the civil register and in documents.

This emerges from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (respect for private and family life), which also protects the human personality in its identity, individuality and integrity.

This means there is a “right to individual gender identity”.

This was won by a man who describes himself as having been born intersex, which means he has physical sex characteristics that are not clearly male or female.

The then Interior Minister Herbert Kickl (FPÖ) then issued a decree on the application of the Civil Status Act, which made a medical expert report a prerequisite for corresponding entries.

This was criticized by interest groups and in the political spectrum, above all by the Greens.

The plaintiff concerned again took legal action and was granted justice by the Upper Austrian Provincial Administrative Court.

In his individual case, the desired entry "inter" was then made.

However, a new decree from the Ministry of the Interior only came after the formation of the government of the ÖVP and the Greens.

Karl Nehammer (today Federal Chancellor, ÖVP) decreed that someone who is not male or female could now choose between "diverse", "inter", "open" and "no entry" in the central civil status register.

This register is authoritative for most legal acts - right down to whether someone is conscripted as a man or has an earlier pension entitlement as a woman (currently from the age of 60 instead of 66).

Neither this obligation nor that privilege applies to persons for whom something else is registered.

The newspaper "Die Presse" pointed out that the validity of the decree had not yet been decided.

Actually, a decree is only an internal instruction to authorities and has no legal effect externally,

In everyday life, however, the so-called registration form, which can often be viewed by third parties, is more present.

You have to present it on all possible occasions, whether when registering at a school, to conclude a rental agreement or even with your employer.

There should also be the six options in the future.