Transgender people will be able to change names in Lithuania

Lithuanian Justice Minister Evelina Dobrovolska on Friday signed an order allowing transgender people to change their names.

The Justice Ministry says such people will no longer be required to provide medical proof of gender reassignment but will need to provide a certificate from a Lithuanian or EU healthcare establishment on diagnosed transgenderism. The Justice Ministry's permission would still be needed for that.

The new regulation will come into force on February 2, 2022.

That will be "an important step that will help Lithuania to ensure partial implementation of the ruling the European Court of Human Rights issued more than a decade ago, as well as the consolidation of human rights standards", the ministry said.

In 2007, Lithuania lost the case at the ECHR over the fact that there's no gender reassignment regulation in Lithuania.