Femininity and Masculinity as a Legal Issue
Femininity and Masculinity as a Legal Issue

Summary/Abstract: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes emphasizes that dignity refers to the human person in all his/her complexity including everything that constitutes sex and human sexuality. The determination of sex is not always as natural and obvious as it might seem. There are cases of people who do not accept their femininity or masculinity, which takes place, for example, in the case of transsexualism. In brief—this disorder consists in the desire to belong to the opposite sex, which is usually accompanied by discomfort associated with the biological sex, a sense of inadequacy, and—consequently—desire to undergo a surgical or hormonal treatment in order to adjust the body to the preferred sex. The appearance of a formal possibility to change the sex registered at birth raises the question of whether such a possibility actually serves the human person. Do transsexual people actually do it with respect for the rights and inherent dignity of the human person? The present article constitutes an attempt to answer these questions by analyying the existing solutions in the Polish law, including the position on the matter of both the European and Polish jurisprudence.

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