by Mike Andrew - SGN Staff Writer

An agreement between the two parties that make up Greece's government means that Transgender Greeks will soon have legal recognition.

The left-wing SYRIZA party, the dominant partner in the coalition government, introduced legislation to provide recognition for gender changes in Greek law. The much smaller ANEL party said on September 27 that it would withdraw its objections to the bill.

ANEL's parliamentary spokesman Thanassis Papachristopoulos said that the party would support the bill in Parliament.

'We at the Independent Greeks will vote the bill through,' he said, highlighting the effort by the two parties, although ideologically at opposite ends of the political spectrum, to put on a show of unity.

Unlike SYRIZA, ANEL is a right-wing party, and it is allied with the left only because both oppose the fiscal austerity measures forced on Greece by the European Central Bank.

In 2015, SYRIZA pushed through a bill legalizing same-sex civil unions, over the objections of the Greek Orthodox Church, the country's established religion. ANEL leaders are known to be close to church officials and voted against the civil union bill, which passed only because opposition parties supported it.

According to Greek media, ANEL backed down on its opposition to recognizing Trans people when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of SYRIZA promised not to investigate alleged wrongdoing by ANEL leader and Defense Minister Panos Kammenos.

ANEL's support was necessary because, unlike the civil union bill, opposition parties said they would not vote for the Trans legislation unless all the government's members supported it too.

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