Kuwait’s constitutional court has struck down a contentious law long used to criminalise transgender people by forbidding the “imitation of the opposite sex.”
Event Location
Kuwait, Kuwait
Start Time
23 February 2022, 12:00 AM
End Time
31 March 2022, 12:00 AM
On February 16, the Kuwaiti Constitutional Court ruled article 198 of the penal code, which arbitrarily criminalizes “imitating the opposite sex,” unconstitutional, finding it inconsistent with article 30 of Kuwait’s Constitution that enshrines personal freedom.
After weeks of deliberation and years of campaigning by human rights groups, the court ruled that the vague law policing people who dress and behave like the opposite sex was “inconsistent with the constitution’s keenness to ensure and preserve personal freedom.”
The law had set the maximum penalty for cross-dressing at one-year in prison or a fine of USD 3,300.
The decision was hailed as a liberal counterweight to the conservative politics in Kuwait, a Gulf Arab sheikhdom where homosexual relations are criminalised with up to seven years in prison.
The court’s decision is a positive step, as this discriminatory law has been used to harass, detain, and abuse transgender people in Kuwait. The court cited in its decision the law’s ambiguity, noting it does not specify what constitutes an “imitation of the opposite sex,” and its lack of objectivity, as the application of the law is left to the discretion of the authorities without any clear restrictive framework.
Kuwait court law transgenders
