A LESBIAN couple have taken part in Costa Rica’s first same-sex marriage ceremony thanks to a 24-year-old clerical error.

    Jazmin Elizondo became “husband” to her partner, Laura Florez-Estrada, since her birth certificate had incorrectly registered her as a male.

    “I legally married a man and a woman,” said Marco Castillo, president of Costa Rica’s Diversity Movement gay rights association who officiated at the civil ceremony in late July in San Jose.

    Their union was formally confirmed in Costa Rica’s civil registry Oct. 27, to the delight of activists who support equal rights for gay couples.

    “It’s an important political step because it makes clear that rights should not be conditioned by gender identity,” said Castillo. “This should make people see such issues as something natural.”

    Elizondo, an actress, was born June 10, 1991 in the town of San Isidro de El General, the birthplace of Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas. Her birth certificate was incorrectly completed, making her a man in the eyes of the law.

    The mistake has now enabled her to marry her 28-year-old partner in a first for the Catholic country and in the Central American region as a whole.

    Earlier this year a Costa Rican court gave the green light to gay couples registering civil unions but same-sex marriage remains illegal.

    “Jaz is legally a man but biologically she is a woman. So we took advantage of this mistake,” Florez-Estrada, a Spanish-Peruvian chef who lives in Costa Rica, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.

    After the July 25 ceremony, in which the couple exchanged personal vows in front of friends and family, the couple waited to see if the authorities would include their marriage in the official registry.

    “We would search every day until finally we found out that, yes, we are married,” Forez-Estrada said.

    “I come from a conservative family in an area which is also extremely conservative,” said Elizondo, who is officially a man on her national ID card, as well as her birth certificate. “I don’t know if it was destiny or what,” she said of the bureaucratic mix-up after her birth. “But to me it is marvelous.”(SD-Agencies)