Marriage for all: the City of Geneva applauds the historic decision of the National Council

For many years, the City of Geneva has been committed to combating all forms of discrimination linked to sexual orientation or gender identity and to ensuring a better welcome for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons (LGBTI) within its territory. In 2012, at the request of the associations, it became the first Swiss municipality to create a position of LGBTIQ project manager. Since then, the City of Geneva has developed and supported numerous projects aimed at promoting a sustainable society which respects all its citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression..

An essential change

Faithful to its commitments, the City of Geneva responded favourably to the consultation on the preliminary draft of the “Marriage for all” parliamentary initiative, underlining the need to grant the same rights to all couples. Today, the Administrative Council welcomes the historic vote of the National Council which, by very large majority, approved the opening of civil marriages to couples of the same sex, including access to medically-assisted procreation for female couples. If the project is accepted by the Council of States, Switzerland could then catch up with other European countries and finally make marriage an entirely egalitarian institution. On several occasion, the Swiss people has already expressed its support for this project by a vast majority in various representative surveys.

The need to train municipal staff

The City of Geneva nevertheless reiterates that this important and much-needed legislative change must be accompanied in the municipalities by specific training measures intended for the staff of the civil registry offices. In this domain, the City of Geneva intends to maintain its exemplary approach. For several years, it has increased the awareness of its staff to the issue of differences in sexual or emotional orientation and in gender identity or expression with a view to creating an inclusive work environment promoting respect for each and every individual. At the same time, it has introduced specific training sessions for staff who deal with the public, for example the training for municipal police officers designed to improve the handling of homophobic and transphobic violence.