A woman who once registered as male cannot simply “change back” to female status without completing the Health Ministry’s formal review, the High Court of Justice ruled on Monday.
The three-judge panel held that the gender-change certificate the petitioner received in 2021 “remains valid,” and any new certificate must follow the ministry’s ordinary procedure, which includes an interview with a psychiatrist and a social worker.
The court stressed that only the Interior Ministry can alter the sex marker in Israel’s population registry, and the office was never named as a respondent, one of several procedural flaws that doomed the case.
According to the 36-page ruling, the petitioner, identified only as “A.,” was born in California in 1998, underwent breast removal surgery there in February 2021, and immigrated to Israel two months later.
On 5 May 2021, A. emailed the Gender Adjustment Committee (GAC) US medical letters attesting to the surgery and requested recognition as male. The committee approved the request the next morning and issued an official certificate on 6 May 2021, without ever meeting the petitioner in person.
Why the second request hit a wall
Three and a half years later, on 3 November 2024, A. asked the same committee to declare her female—this time without providing medical documentation. The GAC replied that reversals not based on surgery fall under a separate track that requires at least one interview so staff can “form a direct impression” of the applicant’s current gender status.
A. stated the interview would violate her privacy, arguing that the 2021 certificate was void because the committee allegedly lacked statutory authority. The court rejected that claim, noting it had already upheld the GAC’s powers in earlier cases and that A. herself had invoked those powers when she first sought male status.
In a press release issued after the decision, the conservative NGO “Bochrim BaMishpacha” (“Choosing the Family”), which represented A., called the ruling “outrageous,” adding that “in the progressive kingdom of the Health Ministry, bluff beats reality,” and accusing Justice Yael Willner of joining “the madness.”
What it means in practice
Under Israeli regulations, applicants who have undergone gender-affirmation surgery may obtain a certificate largely by submitting paperwork, while applicants who haven’t, or who seek to reverse a previous change, must sit for an interview.
The High Court’s decision leaves that two-track system intact and makes clear that even those who regret an earlier change must comply with the same rules as anyone else seeking recognition without surgical proof.