What is the
Simplified LEGAL GENDER Bill?

What Is the Bill About?

The Simplified Legal Gender Recognition Act of 2025 is a trans-led legislative proposal that creates a clear, accessible, and rights-based judicial procedure for transgender and gender-diverse Filipinos to change their legal name and gender marker in official documents.

It affirms that gender identity is a matter of self-determination and ensures that trans people are legally recognized in accordance with their lived realities—without intrusive medical, surgical, or psychiatric requirements.

What does the Bill Do?

Recognizes self determination as the core principle guiding legal gender recognition.

Allows individuals to petition for legal name and gender marker change.

Prohibits requirements of sterilization, genital surgery, or psychiatric diagnosis.

Provides for the recognition of foreign gender recognition decisions issued abroad to Filipino citizens or dual nationals.

Ensures that court decisions are based on dignity and equality, not conformity to assigned sex at birth.

Why Is This Important Now?

Thousands of trans Filipinos continue to face discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, housing, and even in voting and travel because their official documents do not reflect who they are.

The Experience of Filipino Transgender People Right Now:

*There is no clear legal path to gender recognition in the Philippines.

*Many face arbitrary, expensive, or impossible barriers just to correct their legal identity.

Mismatched IDs often result in public humiliation, harm, and loss of opportunities.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS BILL?

Trans women, trans men, and nonbinary people seeking congruence between their lived gender and legal documents.

OFWs and diaspora Filipinos who’ve already undergone gender recognition abroad and want recognition at home.

Families and institutions that seek clarity and consistency in records and legal identity.

The Philippine government, which will finally align with international obligations under CEDAW, ICCPR, and the Yogyakarta Principles

How can you support?

  1. Endorse the bill publicly or privately

  2. Share the campaign with your networks using the hashtag: #CallUsByOurNamesPH #LegalGenderRecognitionNow #LGRNow

  3. Include the bill in international advocacy, UN shadow reports, and treaty body submissions.

  4. Help us reach policymakers and build champions in Congress.

  5. Submit statements of support, op-eds, or interviews during Pride and beyond.

  6. Sign the Petition Form

  7. Support our work financially or in-kind.

“This bill is not just a legal reform. It is a political declaration: that trans Filipinos deserve to be seen, respected, and protected under the law—not in spite of our identities but because of them.”