The Colombian Constitutional Court Decided to Grant Trans Women the Right to Pension 

The Colombian Constitutional Court Decided to Grant Trans Women the Right to Pension 
Yana Paskova/The New York TImes/Redux.

16-12-2021

Gabriel Borba

America and Human Rights Researcher,

Global Human Rights Defence.

The Constitutional Court of Colombia opened an important precedent to safeguard trans women's rights, establishing that transgender people have the right to access the retirement pension at the same age as cisgender women. 

The case was brought to the Court by Helena Héran, a trans woman who was prevented from acquiring the retirement pension by age. COLPENSIONES, the Colombian Administrator of Pensions, linked to the Ministry of Labor, denied Helena’s request to retire at the age of 57, with an argument that, even with the change of sex being documented, her new identity document had no pension purposes, in this sense, she would only retire with 62 years old, age established for men. 

The Court acknowledged Helena’s right in 2020, granting her right to retire. However, only on December 9th the Court confirmed the protection to all trans women in Colombia, during a press release posted on Twitter [1], recognizing the violence and discrimination suffered by LGBTQ people when accessing judicial and administrative bodies, furthermore, ensured the judicial right to gender identification.  





Notes:

[1] The press release can be found here: https://twitter.com/CConstitucional/status/1469337024834506756



Sources and further reading:

El Espectador| ELESPECTADOR.COM. 2021: Corte Constitucional protege a Helena Herrán, la mujer trans que logró su pensión. [online] Available at: https://www.elespectador.com/judicial/corte-constitucional-protege-a-helena-herran-la-mujer-trans-que-logro-su-pension/ [Accessed 13 December 2021].