Member of Parliament Andrés Ingi Jónsson raised the issue of the 9,000 ISK fee being levied on people who seek to change their name and gender marker in the National Registry, Kjarninn reports, during a parliamentary session yesterday.
As reported, shortly after Iceland celebrated taking the important step of finally allowing nonbinary people to register their gender under a third marker—X, rather than solely M or F—it came to light that the fee to do so was 9,000 ISK. This was vehemently objected to by Trans Iceland, amongst others, who pointed out the financial difficulties trans people in Iceland already contend with.
Calling this fee a “trans tax”, Andrés Ingi called upon other members of Parliament to amend the 2019 gender determination law, pointing out that a single line in the law, specifying changes to the law on fees collected by the national treasury, currently allows the national government to collect fees on changing one’s name.
This is also something the National Registry pointed out when responding to Trans Iceland’s criticism of the fee, saying that they themselves did not set this fee; rather, it was set into law and is on Parliament to change.
“Is is not a given that trans people have the money to pay such a fee, and in addition, it does not serve the public interest to have a financial threshold for having one’s name and gender in the Registry be correct,” he said in part. Andrés Ingi said that the fee was unfair and unjustifiable, saying, “Parliament needs to admit that this happened on our watch, correct the mistake, and abolish the trans tax immediately.”
Note: Due to the effect the Coronavirus is having on tourism in Iceland, it’s become increasingly difficult for the Grapevine to survive. If you enjoy our content and want to help the Grapevine’s journalists do things like eat and pay rent, please consider joining our High Five Club.
You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
