Uruguay Passes Bill to Allow Citizens to Choose Gender Identity

Uruguay’s Senate unanimously approved a bill this week granting transgender citizens the legal right to change their name and gender marker on official identification documents — a measure that positions the small South American nation among the most progressive in the world on transgender rights.

The bill, formally the Law on the Right to Gender Identity and Change of Name and Sex in Identification Documents, passed the Senate on Monday after clearing Uruguay’s House of Representatives the previous month. It now awaits the signature of President Tabaré Vázquez, who is expected to sign it into law.

Under the legislation, Uruguayans over the age of 18 will be able to update their legal name and gender designation on documents including passports, birth certificates, and marriage records to reflect their gender identity. Notably, the law does not require applicants to undergo surgery or hormone therapy to qualify — a significant departure from many similar laws elsewhere in the world at the time, which often conditioned legal recognition on medical intervention. Applicants who make a change will be limited to doing so once every five years.

The bill’s text frames the right in sweeping terms: “Every person has the right to freely develop their personality in accordance with the proper identity of their gender, independent of their biological, genetic, anatomic” characteristics.

The vote adds to a string of LGBT rights milestones in Uruguay this year alone. Just last month, the country became the first in Latin America to grant same-sex couples full adoption rights. Combined with civil unions, legalized the previous year, Uruguay has moved quickly to extend legal recognition to LGBT relationships and identities — a trajectory that stands in sharp contrast to much of the rest of the region, where such protections remain far more limited or entirely absent.

Uruguay’s left-leaning government, in power since 2005, has made LGBT rights a consistent legislative priority. Advocates say the gender identity law reflects a broader philosophy in Uruguayan policymaking: treating legal recognition of identity as a baseline human right rather than something to be earned through medical gatekeeping.

The law is not without limits. Judicial or civil registry approval will still be required to finalize a name and gender change under the bill as passed — meaning the process, while historic, stops short of full self-identification. Advocates for transgender rights in the region have signaled they’ll continue pushing for reforms that remove that remaining approval requirement in the years ahead.

For now, though, the bill marks a clear milestone: one of the first laws of its kind in Latin America to extend legal gender recognition without conditioning it on surgery, positioning Uruguay as a reference point for similar campaigns elsewhere in the hemisphere.