Civil registry rejects non-binary name changes under an 'arbitrary' criterion.
2026 June 07
An investigation by La Nación found that Costa Rica’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and its Civil Registry are rejecting a growing share of gender identity name change requests, applying a criterion the newspaper describes as arbitrary. Registry staff individually decide whether a requested name is masculine, feminine, or neutral, at times searching the web to judge how a name is traditionally used, and reject names that do not move a person from one traditional gender category to the other.
Noa Pangea Castro Cascante, a non-binary trans person, requested the name “Pangea” in October 2025 and was denied. The rejection stated that the name “does not adjust to traditional masculine or feminine categories, which would contradict the exclusive purpose of said procedure, given that it is associated with the registered sex assigned at birth.” The Civil Registry has held that a non-binary gender identity does not correspond to its concept of a trans person.
Rejections have risen sharply. In 2021 the registry denied 2 applications, about 1% of the total. In 2025 it denied 60, or 20.2%. Requests themselves grew from 150 in 2019 to 297 in 2025. The name change procedure exists because of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advisory opinion OC-24/17, which ordered Costa Rica to guarantee that people can change their name in state records according to their self-perceived gender identity.