Original article (in Croatian) was published on 09/11/2022
The opinion on gender change or living with a different gender identity is the responsibility of the National Health Council at the Ministry of Health.
Danijel Grgicin, a biophysicist who frequently posts misinformation on his Facebook profile (1, 2, 3), is once again spreading misleading and manipulative claims, this time regarding the rights of transgender people.
“Men, it’s no joke, if you still have a little more seniority or years left until retirement, declare yourself trans and retire according to female criteria. In Croatia, not a single institution is responsible for gender determination. Declare yourself a woman and take advantage of that new normal nonsense. When they are already fooling themselves, give them the gift of stupidity”, reveals his Facebook post.
Grgicin’s post suggests that any man can be declared a transgender person, giving him retirement rights according to female criteria, which is not entirely true. Changing gender identity is a much more complex process than the one presented in the post above.
Procedure
We contacted the Ministry of Health, the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO), and the association KolekTIRV, which deals with the rights of transgender people, to clarify the procedure related to the rights of transgender people when it comes to changing gender identity and changing sex.
It should be noted at the beginning that it is incorrect that “in Croatia, not a single institution is responsible for gender determination”, as claimed by Grgicin.
Namely, giving an opinion on gender change or living with a different gender identity is the responsibility of the National Health Council, which operates under the Ministry of Health, and the procedure itself is regulated by numerous regulations.
The Ministry of Health explains that in the process of changing gender or living with a different gender identity, the gender identity in the registers is changed, and the change of gender or gender identity is entered as a change of data in the primary entry in the birth certificate.
Unlike gender reassignment, which is a medical procedure for which the patient must give informed consent in accordance with the Act on the Protection of Patients’ Rights, gender identity change is an administrative procedure for a change in the registers.
In both cases, the opinion of the National Health Council at the Ministry of Health is critical. It issues an opinion on gender change or life with a different gender identity based on medical (findings of a doctor of medicine, a specialist in psychiatry, and a specialist in endocrinology and diabetology) and other documentation (a report from the Center for Social Welfare) prescribed by the Rulebook on the Method of Collecting Medical Documentation on Gender Change.
The positive opinion of the National Health Council does not mean the end of the bureaucratic process related to changing gender or living with a different gender identity.
The next step concerns the change of documents, i.e. the request for a new identity card issued by the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), after which the transgender person can change the data in the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) and the Croatian Health Insurance Institute (HZZO).
HZMO’s response
The HZMO replied that the procedure for exercising pension insurance rights is initiated by a request in which the party provides personal data, including a personal identification number (OIB).
“On the basis of the information provided in the request, the head of the procedure inspects the OIB system of the Tax Administration of the Republic of Croatia (web service), in which all data on the identity of persons taken from the Ministry of the Interior, including information on gender, is recorded”, reveals HZMO’s answer.
The institution also pointed out that “the mere fact that a man has declared himself a transgender person does not imply the application of the provisions that refer to persons of the female gender”.
In other words, a person who decides to change gender or live with a different gender identity cannot just “declare” it and suddenly get all the rights from that procedure.
A long process
The association KolekTIRV responded that the change of gender in documents is a consequence of the process in which transgender people equate their gender identity with the one written on the identity card.
“Such a process (transition) lasts a minimum of one year, most often two years and the rights that a person would have according to cynical status imply retirement exactly two years earlier, at the age of 63. It can be logically concluded that entering the transition process due to early retirement is not only not possible because the experts who participate in the approval and a person who is not transgender will not go through the process, but it does not make any sense because the time of the process is equal to the time of early retirement”.
The association also notes that such a process is the fundamental right of transgender people to live a dignified life and adapt their documents to their gender identity and that referring to this possibility, without mentioning the process that precedes the change of gender in documents, is part of the campaign to stigmatize the transgender community.
In conclusion, the statement from Danijel Grgicin’s post that no institution in Croatia is competent to determine gender is incorrect because giving an opinion on changing gender or living with a different gender identity is the responsibility of the National Health Council, which operates under the Ministry of Health. At the same time, the procedure itself is regulated by numerous regulations. The claim that the gender change procedure can be performed quickly is also manipulative because the procedure involves many “steps” at several state institutions, which significantly prolongs the process.