Conservative bill seeks to reinstate sex of birth on ID cards.

2026 April 30

Deputy Pablo Sibaja, of the conservative party Nueva República, filed a bill in the Legislative Assembly to reinstate the sex-of-birth field on Costa Rica’s national identity card (cédula). The Supreme Electoral Court had removed that field in 2018 to prevent stigmatization and protect the gender identity of trans, non-binary and intersex citizens, in line with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advisory opinion OC-24/17.

Sibaja’s proposal would make the field optional and display only “femenino” or “masculino” categories based on the birth certificate. He argued that removing the data “disrespected citizens who wished to see it” on their documents. The initiative was presented in the final weeks of the legislative period, in parallel with Nueva República’s opposition to the trans identity recognition bill (file 23.809) promoted by Frente Amplio.

LGBTIQA+ advocates warned that the measure would create a visible marker exposing trans and non-binary people to workplace, housing and institutional discrimination, undoing one of the few concrete administrative protections won in the past decade.

2026 April 30

News article in Spanish: