Women and men can choose a neutral name.

This Friday, Parliament approved a diploma that will allow people to choose a neutral name, eliminating the requirement to identify names as male or female. In practice, names such as Rafa, Alex or Chris are valid for any gender.

Thanks to changes made to the Civil Registration Code, it became possible to change a name to take into account self-determination of gender identity and gender expression. The discrepancy that existed when people changed their name and gender at the Institute of Civil Registry and Notary, but did not change the surname in the documents of children and spouses, has also been eliminated.

The final text of the PS, BE, Livre and PAN bills was approved with the support of PSD and IL, as well as the sponsors. They voted against Chegi and 21 SDP deputies; The PKP abstained, as did eight PS deputies and nine Social Democrats.

BE wanted to go further by proposing the right for intersex people not to have any mention of gender on their citizenship card, but PS said this was not possible in a timely manner as it would require reconfiguring the computer system.

DETAILS
Six words
The full name must consist of a maximum of six words, of which only two can correspond to a proper name.

Onomastics
Proper names must be Portuguese, from those found in onomastics, or graphically and phonetically adapted to the Portuguese language.

Vote down
Chega voted against the new text because he considered it a “step backwards” and an “absurd path,” said MP Rita Mathias.