Paulo Côrte-Real, Co-Chair of ILGA-Europe, added: Instead of keeping the state in charge of a person’s body and life, the parliament recognised that these are rights pertaining to the individual.”

“Just like in 1989, when Denmark became the first country in the world to introduce a legal concept of same-sex partnership, today Denmark pioneered another significant change in Europe.

Gabi Calleja, Co-Chair of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board, said: New procedure for obtaining preferred gender coming into force on 1 September 2014 makes the person concerned the sole decision maker without any conditions imposed by the state: an application for legal change of gender is submitted to a relevant authority and after 6 months the applicant simply needs to confirm their application. The Danish parliament also removed such requirements as medical intervention, compulsory surgical intervention and compulsory sterilisation.