ABSTRACT
This study analyses selected issues surrounding the legal protection of transsexual persons1 in the European Union and States that have ratified the ECHR through an examination of the approach followed by the ECtHR and the CJEU. In illustrating the arguments used by these European courts, the chapter seeks to determine whether the approach represents reaffirmation of the binary gender system and the traditional idea of family based on marriage between a man and a woman or whether it moves beyond these traditional categories. The reading of the case law suggests that the approach of the European Courts simply confirms the binary gender system and the mainstream idea of family as founded on marriage between men and women. The approach of the ECtHR and the CJEU follows a typical “heteronormative approach” to the family realm, leaving most transgender persons in a sort of legal limbo without full guarantee of their constitutional rights and freedoms.
