Legal Gender Recognition and Free Movement in the EU In Defence of the Advocate General Opinion in ShipovEarlier this month, Advocate General Richard de la Tour delivered his Opinion in Shipov, a case before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dealing with the gender recognition rights of a trans woman who lives in Italy but is originally from Bulgaria, where legal gender recognition is generally impossible. In Mirin, the Court held that the non-recognition of the change of legal gender of a trans Union citizen across Member States could cause “serious inconvenience” and thereby impede the exercise of EU free movement rights. Unlike in Mirin, where the applicant had already completed a legal gender recognition procedure in another Member State, the applicant in Shipov has not undergone such a procedure anywhere. Relying on ECtHR case law, he recalled States’ positive obligation under the ECHR to provide a quick, transparent, and accessible framework for legal gender recognition (para. v. Bulgaria) in which the Strasbourg Court held that Bulgaria breached Article 8 ECHR, because of the legislative absence of a legal gender recognition procedure.