Being transgender is a crime in 13 UN nations, but anti-trans laws target individuals in ‘many more countries,’ says new report

Being transgender is a crime in more than a dozen nations around the world, but anti-trans laws targeting the community are found in many other countries, according to a new report.

On Tuesday, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World) released the third edition of its Trans Legal Mapping Report.

The research looked at how trans people are legally recognized in countries around the world, as well as their experiences of being criminalized just because of their gender identity.

The report analyzed legislation used to recognize and to persecute transgender people in 143 UN member states as well as 19 other jurisdictions around the globe.

“To date, at least 13 UN member States worldwide explicitly criminalize trans persons, but we know that a much wider range of laws is used to target them in many more countries”, Zhan Chiam, the coordinator and co-author of the report, told the Daily News in a statement.

“Evidence collected from communities on the ground highlights how measures related to public nuisance, indecency, morality, loitering, sex work-related offences, and consensual same-sex activity amongst others are actively deployed for the same purpose,” he said, noting that using such laws to target trans individuals “is just as damaging as so-called “cross-dressing” regulations which overtly target gender expressions.”

After analyzing data from 2019, researchers found that in the following countries, transgender people are criminalized and targeted mostly with “cross-dressing” laws: Brunei, the Gambia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malawi, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, South Sudan, Tonga and the United Arab Emirates.

Language contained in the Islamic Penal Code in Iran is a little more vague when it comes to trans individuals, “although its impact is no less severe,” according to the ILGA.

“It is a difficult time for trans communities globally,” Jabulani Pereira, chair of the organization’s Trans Steering Committee, wrote in the report.

“We continue to push against repressive state laws, and at the same time we will need many more studies that celebrate our challenges and gains in our right to self-determination, our right to gender-affirming care and to live in a world that does not systemically and physically harm us.”

The challenging time for transgender people is reflected in the “regression or stagnation in legal gender recognition rights in countries such as Guatemala, Hungary, Mongolia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay, and the potential for regression in India and Nepal,” he said.

Despite the somber tone of the report, however, researchers have also recorded some positive news.

Since 2017, nine countries (or jurisdictions within them) have introduced legal gender recognition processes without abusive preconditions.

They are Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal, as well as some parts of Australia.

“We are delighted to see that in some jurisdictions — Australia (the state of Victoria), Costa Rica and most of Canada — there is now the option to remove gender markers altogether,” Chiam wrote.

The possibility of legal gender recognition is also now possible in “Pakistan, while Bangladesh gives hijras access to voting rights, and discussion continues around the change of sex marker Article in the Civil Code in Vietnam.”

In recent years, Botswana and South Africa also had court wins in recognizing trans peoples' gender identities in legal documents and in the prison system respectively.

But with progress, comes backlash, Chiam noted.

“In every region of the world where we have been documenting legal gender recognition, regressions have occurred, often in the form of so-called ‘gender ideology’, the emergence of exclusionary movements, and right-wing politicians positing LGBT against national identities,” he added.

The study is especially important now, after last year’s decision by the World Health Organization to update its vocabulary and no longer classify being transgender as a mental disorder.

“Now more than ever, we need accurate data, research and information to inform global activism on trans issues”, Tuisina Ymania Brown and Luz Elena Aranda, co-secretaries general at ILGA World, said in a statement.

“Even more importantly, this will help trans activists and allies on the ground with readily-available resources, relevant to their contexts, that they can use to make their voices heard and push for change.”

ILGA World is a worldwide federation of more than 1,600 organizations from over 160 countries and territories that advocates for the rights of LGBTI individuals.