The case concerned a transgender man from Iran who had obtained asylum in Hungary but could not
legally change his gender and name in that country.
The Court noted that the domestic system for gender recognition had excluded the applicant simply
because he did not have a birth certificate from Hungary, a change in the birth register being the
way name and gender changes were legally recognised.
The Court concluded that a fair balance had not been struck between the public interest and the
applicant’s right to respect for his private life owing to the refusal to give him access to the legal
gender recognition procedure.
This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’) and Article 4 of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted (OJ 2011 L 337, p. 9).
