Country Overview
Chile
At a glance
Same-sex Relations for Men Legal Throughout the Country?
Same-sex Relations for Women Legal Throughout the Country?
Legal Gender Recognition Possible?
LGBTI Orgs Able to Register?
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Chile has made significant progress on LGBTIQ equality. Same-sex marriage and adoption have been legal since March 2022. Since 2012, Chile’s hate crime law has included sexual orientation and gender identity as aggravating circumstances, and since 2015, same-sex civil unions have been legally recognized. There have also been positive judicial developments in recent years, including a landmark decision of a family court in 2020 recognizing two women as the parents of a child born through assisted reproduction. In 2019, a comprehensive legal gender recognition law based on self-determination was passed, and a third sex option has been available for intersex children on birth certificates since 2006. While there is no legal ban on medically unnecessary surgeries (IGM) on minors, in 2023, the Minister of Health published non-binding intersex-affirming guidance, including recommendations against IGM.
Societal opinion of LGBTIQ people is primarily positive. However, there has been recent pushback on transgender people’s rights. Following the Cass Report in the United Kingdom, Chile established a parliamentary investigative commission in 2024 to analyze public policies regarding transgender children and adolescents. The commission ultimately recommended rolling back gender-affirming programs and limiting minors’ access to legal gender recognition, including by suspending supportive measures in health and education, a move widely condemned by LGBTIQ organizations as a violent and unprecedented transphobic attack.
*Outright research indicates that the bodily autonomy of intersex people is not respected and protected in this country.
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