Belgium will permit people to change their gender identity as often as they want.

The Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, says that the principle of “irrevocability” will be abandoned. This means that people will be allowed to change their gender and their first names multiple times. Similarly, family court proceedings will also be changed. It will be possible to modify the registration of gender or first name with the civil registrar.

At a later stage Belgium will also implement changes to recognise non-binary identities. The Constitutional Court has ruled that the absence of this possibility violates the principle of equality for those who cannot fall into the categories “man” or “woman”.

“It is important that the rights of transgender people are respected and that they can change their sex registration according to their gender identity, without unnecessary or finicky procedures. The Constitutional Court rightly pointed out that the initial law was insufficient in this area,” the minister said.