Transgender Europe Press Release: Launch of TvT research report on 11 December 2012
Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide: A Comparative Review of the Human-rights Situation of Gender-variant/Trans People
The comprehensive research report by TGEU’s Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT) research project presents, discusses and contextualises the key findings of two sub-projects. The first is the Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM), a systematic collection, monitoring and analysis of reported killings of gender-variant/trans people worldwide. The report discusses and contextualises the TMM findings for the period from 2008 until 2011. 831 reported killings of gender-variant/trans people were documented in 55 countries, the numbers constantly increasing. The second sub-project is the Legal and Health Care Mapping, which provides an overview of existing laws, law proposals, and actual legal and health-care practices relevant to gender-variant/trans people. It is presented in the form of an attached leaflet with comparative tables in which the legal and health care situation of 72 countries is shown in detail. One of the key findings discussed in the report is that in most countries where a legal change of gender is possible, the applying person must first receive a ‘psychiatric diagnosis’ that pathologises her, him, or hir and undergo ‘gender-reassignment surgery’ and/or ‘sterilisation’, a situation that clearly violates human rights.
This publication is the result of intense collaboration between TGEU’s TvT researchers and numerous international experts and activists. It provides a polyvocal account of some of the major challenges and achievements of gender-variant/trans people and their movements in the twenty-first century. The report was written by Carsten Balzer and Jan Simon Hutta from TGEU’s TvT team and contains a foreword by Charles Radcliffe (United Nations OHCHR), contributions by Tamara Adrián (Venezuela), Peter Hyndal (Australia) and Susan Stryker (USA) as well as several interviews with international trans activists, among them Liesl Theron (South Africa), Naomi Fontanos (The Philippines), Richard Köhler (Germany), and Joleen Mataele (Tonga).
The report and leaflet can be downloaded from the TvT website at:
www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/publications.htm
The launch of the report is on 11 December 2012 in Stockholm (Sweden) at the 26 th ILGA World conference. Transgender Europe’s TvT research team will launch the report together with some of its partners in the Global South and East.
Background:Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT) provides an overview of the human rights situation of trans persons in different parts of the world and develops useful data and advocacy tools for international institutions, human-rights organisations, the trans movement and the general public. It is a comparative, ongoing qualitative-quantitative research project conducted by TGEU’s TvT team in close cooperation with 17 partner organisations and numerous trans activists and researchers in all six world regions. It has been counseled by an Advisory Board of more than 20 LGBT, trans and human-rights experts from all parts of the world. The data collected are compiled and updated periodically and can be viewed in detail in English and Spanish on the TvT website:
www.transrespect-transphobia.org