Israeli Transgender Man Recognized as Child’s ‘Father’ in Same-Sex First
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Israel’s Interior Ministry has recognized the two biological fathers of the same baby.
The baby is the son of Yuval and Matan Topper-Erez. Yuval Topper-Erez, the first Israeli transgender man to get pregnant, gave birth to the baby in December 2011.
The Interior Ministry at first refused to recognize Matan as the baby’s biological father, saying they were unable to register two make biological parents.
At a hearing a year after the baby was born, the ministry tried to undermine the sex change operation and said it wanted to register Yuval as female.
The Interior Ministry agreed to list the two fathers as the baby’s biological parents and listed them in the population registry after the intervention of two lawmakers: Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar and the chairman of the Knesset Interior Committee Miri Regev.
In order to effect the registration, Yuval was first identified as female in order to register the child with his spouse, and then his registration was changed to male.
This is the first time that both members of a same-sex couple in Israel have been listed as a baby’s biological parents. In the past, one of the parents was required to adopt the child.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
