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QUEBEC, December 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Quebec National Assembly passed an amendment Dec. 6th to its civil code removing the stipulation that persons wanting to legally change their gender identity must first undergo sex-change surgery.

After the amendment, Quebec’s Civil Code maintains the requirement that only Canadian citizens 18 years or older and living in Quebec for at least one year can apply to have the sex appearing on their identity documents changed. But the code now reads that the change “may in no case be made dependent on the requirement to have undergone any medical treatment or surgical operation whatsoever.”

Transexual rights activists said that while the amendment makes the civil code “less discriminatory,” the age, citizenship and residency requirements still discriminate against what conservative pundits would call gender-confused persons.

The World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association continue to classify “transgender” people as suffering from gender identity disorder.

“The civil code as it stands … will just be less discriminatory — so our mandate to go forward with a court case is still valid and in full force,” said Gabrielle Bouchard of Concordia University’s Centre for Gender Advocacy to the homosexual news service Daily Xtra.

According to The Concordian, Juripop, a Quebec legal clinic, and the Centre for Gender Advocacy launched a lawsuit against the provincial govern in an attempt to have the other restrictions in Article 71 abolished.

“We still have to fight for the rights of trans immigrants and trans minors,” said Juripop’s general director, Marc-Antoine Cloutier. “This is discrimination that is illegal, according to both the Canadian and Quebec charter, so I think we have a fairly good chance of being successful.”

A federal bill seeking to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” as protected rights in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code is currently before the Senate.

Critics of “gender identity” and “gender expression” legislation have pointed to numerous troubling aspects of proposed changes in law that seek to normalize sexual deviance.

Walt Heyer, a former transgender person who now speaks publicly about the devastating consequences of “sex change” told LifeSiteNews in a 2012 interview that many people who identify themselves as transgender suffer from “diagnosable disorders” and that laws should not be enacted that encourage people in their disorders.

“It is so appalling to me, as a former trans person, that lawmakers today, who are motivated by sexual activists, are willing to legislate that society accept people who need psychiatric care,” said Heyer.

He suggested that a more helpful alternative for people struggling with their sexual identity would be for lawmakers to “make available more accurate psychological treatment.”

The amendment to Article 71 of Quebec's Civil Code (Bill 35: An Act to amend the Civil Code as regards civil status, successions and the publication of rights) may be found on page 6 of the document.