The “Legal and Social Mapping” was conducted by Transgender Europe’s Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT) research project in close cooperation with activists and experts from all world regions. A comprehensive questionnaire developed by the TvT project’s research team and reviewed by more than 15 researchers and activists from all six worlds regions was distributed to over 100 international activists and experts, who provided detailed information including comments and explanations on the specific situation in the respective country.
At present (September 2015) the TvT Legal and Social Mapping encompasses 119 countries. These data build the basis for the maps and the comparative country data in the TvT databank.
The TvT team also created leaflets showing the Legal and Social Mapping data in PDF form, which can be used by activists as advocacy tools.
In the following we present these leaflets and their newest updates in chronological order.
There you may find the first TvT leaflet of the Legal and Health-Care Mapping from 2012 (encompassing 74 countries) as well as the extended three-folded Legal and Social Mapping leaflets from 2014 (encompassing 116 countries), which also include two regional Mappings (Europe and Oceania).
The TvT mappings are designed such that they enable a regular update and extensions of the tables. Therefore, any information and evaluation of the presented tables is highly welcomed and will be analysed and included in regular updates.
The mappings provide detailed information on the following subjects:
2014 Legal and Social Mapping – World #1
Legal Gender Recognition, Anti-Discrimination, Hate Crime and Asylum Legislation
These TvT ‘2014 Legal and Social Mapping – World: #1 Legal Gender Recognition, Anti-Discrimination, Hate Crime and Asylum Legislation’ tables visualise trans-specific and trans-inclusive laws and how they are used in actual practice. The tables also list law proposals and initiatives that challenge existing measures and serve to indicate existing trans activism.
2014 Legal and Social Mapping – World #2
Criminalisation, Prosecution, State-Sponsored Discrimination and Hormones, Hormone Therapy and Gender Reassignment Treatment/Surgery
These TvT ‘2014 Legal and Social Mapping World: #2 Criminalisation, Prosecution, State-Sponsored Discrimination and Hormones, Hormone Therapy and Gender Reassignment Treatment/Surgery’ tables provide information on legal measures that criminalise trans people, showing important differences between criminalisation and actual prosecution. The tables also show different forms of state-sponsored discrimination ranging from legal exclusion of non-binary identities to e.g. exclusion from certain professions (teachers, police, military). They also give insight into trans people’s health-care situation, showing several aspects of medically supervised hormone therapy and gender reassignment treatments, including requirements like ‘psychiatric diagnosis’, as well as the availability of funding. They also list the existence of ‘alternative practices’, such as acquiring hormones on the black market or applying industrial silicone without medical supervision.
2014 Legal and Social Mapping – World #3
Community/Movement, Good Practices and Reports of Transphobic Incidents
These TvT ‘2014 Legal and Social Mapping – World: #3 Community/Movement, Good Practices and Reports of Transphobic Incidents’ tables provide important information on the structures, stages of development, and successes of trans communities and movements and their activism. This includes e.g. the availability of funding for trans organisations and alliance-building with other movements. Furthermore, the mapping of the existence of good practices by trans organisations, trans communities and their allies, but also by governments and state institutions, provides deeper insight into the social situation of trans people. At the same time, we also map reports of transphobic incidences that illustrate how well widespread forms of transphobic attacks are reported and documented.
Furthermore two regional mappings (Europe and Oceania) including all topics have been produced by the TvT team:
2014 Legal and Social Mapping – Europe
2014 Legal and Social Mapping – Oceania
In 2012 the following Legal and Health Care Mapping providing data on 74 countries has been produced by the TvT team: