Puerto Rico Strips LGBTQI Discrimination Protections
In a blow to human rights, one territory has stripped down laws that prevented discrimination based on sexuality and gender. Earlier this month, Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced signed a new civil code that removed explicit non-discrimination protections for the island’s LGBTQI citizens.A widely criticised amendment, as reported by freelancer journalist Nico Lang, is that corrections to the gender marker on a trans person’s birth certificate “cannot be authorised.” Instead of changing the birth gender, the document will now include an annotation noting an individual’s gender identity. Lang explains that could see a transgender person then be outed if they show those records to an employer.“The government has failed to carry out