The Right to Gender Identity: A Case Study on Transgenderism in the European Court of Human Rights

The thesis explores to which extent it is possible for an individual to live in accordance with his or her chosen gender identity within the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights, and within the conventional right to privacy in particular. The specific research question has been to find out whether a right to decide one's gender identity has emerged in the European Court of Human Rights by studying the argumentation of the Court in cases concerning rights of transgendered individuals. Discourse theory has been used as an analytical tool to display the argumentation of the Court and in particular to study the development of the discussion. I have used the concept of chains of equivalence, which is a tool for visualising how expressions are linked together in a certain discursive context where they enforce each other. The empirical research material consists of the cases from the European Court of Human Rights where individuals have claimed their rights have been breached as a consequence of their transgender identity. I have then extracted passages from the judgement or dissenting opinions where the Court or separate judges speak in favour of a right to live in accordance with one's gender identity, that is, the gender you perceive yourself as. I have then categorised the extracts thematically based on which argument that is used in support of the right to live freely as the gender one prefers. Based on the empirical findings, I conclude that the European Court has increasingly acknowledged transgendered individuals' rights to decide their gender identity. This right has emerged within the framework of the right to privacy in Article 8, but it is always articulated in combination with other rights as a support