Transgender and intersex Catholics have faced mixed results when requesting that church records be emended to reflect their actual names and gender identities. In Argentina, a transgender activist is suing a bishop who refused to change the activist’s church records, a case that could now be taken up by the nation’s Supreme Court. But in the Philippines, an intersex Catholic had their church records changed successfully.

Alba Rueda’s lawsuit against Archbishop Mario Antonio Cargnello of Salta is now heading to Argentina’s Supreme Court after being rejected by lower appeals courts. Filed last year, the suit stems from the archbishop’s refusal to change Rueda’s baptismal and confirmation certificates so they are in line with the name and gender on her national identification document, which has been corrected from the name and sex assigned to her at birth. Télam reported:

“‘[The archbishop] told me that “canon law ignores legal fictions” and treating me as a male, clarified to me: you were baptized and that is a historical fact that nobody can change,’ said this philosophy professor who was one of the first trans women who obtained the registry change in the [National Identity Document] by judicial means, before the passage of the law 26.743 [legalizing document changes].

“Subsequently, the Archbishop partially agreed to the request, noting the registry change in the margins, which according to its sponsors ‘violates the provisions of the law and violates the privacy’ of the applicant, ‘exposing her trans identity to the religious community.’

“‘The gender identity law says that registration changes do not have to leave a trace and that the documents have to be replaced by exactly the same ones, they cannot be marginal notes,” said [Rueda’s lawyer Alejandro] Mamani.”

Defending his refusal, Archbishop Cargnello said that church records and civil records are different. Read more via New Ways Ministry