Transgender EuroStudy – Legal Survey and Focus ... - ILGA Europe

Transgender EuroStudy:
Legal Survey and Focus on the
Transgender Experience of Health Care
There are several possible explanations for this variation in response rate:
the medical and legal frameworks under which some people live in their State may alienate
them from other community members;
the medical, social and legal frameworks may mean that few people feel they can identify as
trans;
a lack of social acceptance may mean trans people in some countries choose to disengage
themselves from the social support or cultural spaces whereby they might hear of the project;
historical differences in the legal mechanisms that exist within States may mean that some
trans people are more politicised and willing to take part in such a survey than others;
a failure in the promotion mechanism for the surveys.
50
Professor Whittle
worked as a social
advisor and support
group leader in the UK
from the period 1975-
1990, then after
graduating in law, he
became a legal advisor
and activist, a position
he retains today. He has
worked on social policy
development in many
European states, as a
researcher with several
EU projects, and as a
legal and case advisor
throughout Europe, with
cases in both the
European Court of
Justice and the
European Court of
Human Rights.
51
www.pfc.org.uk.
52
Whittle, S., Turner, L.
2007 Engendered
Penalties: Transgender
and Transsexual People’s
Experiences of Inequality
and Discrimination,
London: Cabinet Office.
This report led to trans
people being
acknowledged by the
then Commission for
Equality and Human
Rights as the ‘seventh
strand’ of the existing
‘strands’ of inequality.
One role of the translators was to use a snowball method for publicising the survey by using
their links with the community, or the community’s gender identity medical clinics, using email and
asking for the message to be forwarded to as many relevant people as possible. Some had far better
community links than others. In a couple of cases a translator had to be employed who had few, if any,
links with the trans community, and this is noticeable in terms of respondents – for example in Malta,
Poland, Greece and Spain.
From the lead researcher’s extensive 30 year knowledge of the community, its legal
background, and its historical and social placing, 50 it could be said that the monopolistic conservative
medical systems of some countries – for example France, encourage trans people to ‘disappear’ into
their new gender roles. In others, similar treatment monopolies exist which are closely linked with
legal status recognition – for example The Netherlands and Belgium. In these States, only those trans
people who accept the entire list of treatments offered are able to gain a new legal status. This tends
to drive trans people underground, as they become institutionalised into accepting how shameful it is
to still identify as trans post-transition.
One reason for the large English language response rate, compared to other languages, will
have been the extensive politicisation of the UK trans community over the last 15 years through the
work of a campaigning group: Press for Change. 51 Many UK respondents to a previous study in 2006
had also experienced positive feedback in terms of political acknowledgement of the problems trans
people face. 52 This will have encouraged repeat participation as it would have been felt that the time
invested was worthwhile. It is probably the case that the response rate has been high in the German
language survey because the report from that study was given a high profile amongst the community,
similarly in France.
The very small response rate from Spain and Italy is perhaps not so surprising when we
recognise that gender reassignment was severely stigmatised until very recently, when the law was
changed in 2006. Living as a trans person in Italy can prove very difficult because of the complicating
factor of the Roman Catholic Church and its refusal to acknowledge any right of trans people to live in
their preferred gender role. Legal recognition processes are weak, and ultimately many of the
respondents would belong to 2 or 3 support groups in major urban centres such as Milan, Turin and
Bologna. In both countries, as in Portugal, the only available employment option for many trans
people has been involvement in sex work, and so the majority of trans people will have access to a
social support network, but it will be highly localised and have little connection with statutory social
support organisations.
In other European Union States there has not been a tradition of sex work for trans people. This