There are 2,920 days in eight years. And yet, Lithuania remains one of a few European jurisdictions without any possibility for legal gender recognition, having not implemented a 2007 judgment from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The Strasbourg court was crystal clear in L vs. Lithuania—the state was failing to live up to its international human rights commitments. In 2007, the ECtHR found that Lithuania had violated Article 8 (respect for private and family life); while Lithuanian law did recognise the right of trans people to change their civil status, it did not legally regulate reassignment surgery. The judgment placed an onus on the government to legislate, but Lithuanian authorities are still overtly reluctant to introduce the procedure.
The legal solutions for the implementation of ECtHR judgment proposed so far have created a legal limbo for trans people instead of resolving the problem. They have made legal gender recognition dependent on gender reassignment treatments (which are actually not available or regulated in the country). LGBTI activists in the country knew that something needed to change.
