The gender and social name fields on identity cards should undergo changes.

Agency Brazil The government is preparing changes to the social name and gender fields on the National Identity Card (CIN), a standardized document intended to replace other forms of citizen identification, such as the well-known RG, which is issued by state secretariats.

Through a resolution published in Official Gazette This Monday (10), the Federal Executive Chamber for Citizen Identification created a working group composed of representatives from five ministries, in addition to the Federal Revenue Service and the National Council of Directors of Identification Bodies. The objective is to propose changes to the current rules, which were established in February 2022, during the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

In November, the Federal Attorney's Office for Citizens' Rights (PFDC), an agency of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF), issued a technical note criticizing the decree that established the current rules. The text provides, for example, for the inclusion of the registered name alongside the social name field.

According to the PFDC (Federal Public Defender's Office), the provision for including the registered name in the CIN (National Identity Card) "not only constitutes a blatant violation of the right to self-identification of transgender people, but also invalidates the very need for its use, in addition to setting a dangerous precedent for the humiliating exposure of a name that does not represent the person one wishes to identify with."

The agency also stated that "the requirement to include biological sex, besides lacking any administrative or bureaucratic justification, encourages violations of the human rights of people whose registered sex differs from their gender identity and expression."

A draft to amend the provisions on the sex and social name fields in the National Identity Card must be submitted within a maximum of 60 days, according to the decree published this Monday (10).