Transgender Bolivians celebrate new ID cards with chosen gender

SUCRE, Bolivia, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Transgender people in Bolivia on Tuesday celebrated the arrival of government-issued identification cards on which they can register their chosen gender.

Under Bolivia's Gender Identity Law, which passed in May, transgender people can request to have their name, gender and photo changed on official government documents to reflect the gender with which they identify.

The first IDs arrived on Tuesday and Bolivia's LGBT community celebrated the occasion, according to Bolivia's General Personal Identification Service.

"The right to identify is the fundamental right for all people. It is not possible to go somewhere and not present your identity card, they always demand it," said Luna Sharlotte Humérez Aquino, who received her ID Tuesday and who was the first person in Bolivia to receive a birth certificate that reflects her gender identity, instead of her biological identity. "Now we count on our card that identifies us and that we transgender people can have our name changed, our gender and our image in our identity cards."

LGBT groups estimate that about 1,500 transgender people in Bolivia will change their government-issued documents under the new law. People who wish to change their gender must be 18 or older and have an interview with a psychologist before documents are issued. Similar laws are in effect in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay.

"We are happy, happy because we are reborn right? Our documents will be with the name by which we identify, with which we made the transition," Humérez Aquino added.