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Most Swiss against third gender option in official documents

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© Keystone / Christian Beutler

According to a survey, 62% of respondents are opposed to the introduction of a third gender in official documents.

The poll, published on Tuesday by Tamedia and 20 Minuten, asked Swiss residents whether they would approve of adding a “third gender” or “other” box to official documents in addition to the masculine and feminine genders. Almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents said no or rather not. 

The third gender option did not win over a majority in any category of the population surveyed, including urban Switzerland and people with higher education. With 45% in favour, women were clearly more open to the idea than men (26% in favour).

+ Swiss government comes out against third-gender option

Since last year, it has been possible to change one’s first name and gender on official documents. Respondents were divided on this new option. Almost half (48%) view it positively or fairly positively, while the same proportion view it critically or fairly critically.

Here too, there is a difference between men and women. The majority of women (58%) took a positive view of this new product, while the majority of men (56%) were critical.

In collaboration with the Leewas Institute, 30,754 people throughout Switzerland were surveyed at the end of March. The margin of error is +/- 1 percentage point.
 

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR