Should medically assisted procreation (PMA) be open to transgender men, recognized as such in the civil status but still endowed with a uterus?

The question must be decided on July 8 by the Constitutional Council, which devoted a hearing to it on Tuesday.

The law on "PMA for all", promulgated in August, opened access to this medical technique to female couples and single women, but not to men.

This difference in treatment "undermines the principle of equality between women and men", noted before the Sages Me Magali Lhotel, lawyer for the Information and Action Group on Procreative and Sexual Questions (Giaps), which seized the Council of this priority question of constitutionality (QPC).

"Yet there are men in the civil registry who have a uterus", she continued, stressing that it was up to doctors, and not to the legislator, to say "who is able to carry out or not a pregnancy ".

The legislator “allowed that men can lead a pregnancy”

In addition, since 2016, transgender people are no longer obliged to undergo medical sterilization to obtain a sex change in the civil status, argued Me Lhotel: this amounts to saying that the legislator has "admit that men can lead a pregnancy", which is practically possible without medical assistance, if they are in a relationship with a man.

For the representative of the government, Antoine Pavageau, acceding to the request of Giaps would however amount to “recognizing a new sexual category, male for civil status, and female for access to medically assisted procreation”.

However, "binarity is necessary for the social and legal order" because it "enables the maintenance of people's rights", he argued.

Our file on PMA

The difference in treatment contested by the plaintiffs is "justified, because it is attached not to biological sex, but to civil status", continued the senior official.

"Certainly, transgender men who have had their marital status changed are excluded (from the PMA), but this is not discrimination linked to their sexual orientation or their status" as a couple, Antoine Pavageau further underlined, for whom "no constitutional principle imposes" to open the PMA to "all people".

In addition, transgender men can still access PMA if they are in a relationship with a woman, he argued.

An argument nuanced by Giaps: in such a case, only the companion of the transgender man can benefit from PMA, observed after the hearing Marie Mesnil, member of the association.

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  • Company

  • LDCs

  • Pregnancy

  • Transgender

  • Constitutional Council