“Realising the rights of trans people is a matter of applying human rights equally to everyone, and states have the primary responsibility to lift the barriers trans people are facing in exercising their human rights”, said the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, when releasing her report entitled “Human rights and gender identity and expression”.
The report takes stock of progress, as well as long-standing and new challenges experienced by trans people, including those who are further marginalised due to their characteristics or status, recognising that trans people are a diverse group of individuals with differing experiences, identities and views.
It covers a range of issues such as non-discrimination, violence, family law, healthcare, legal gender recognition, asylum, employment, conversion practices, education, and poverty and housing. It also addresses matters that have recently become a flashpoint for hostile public debate, such as access to gender-segregated spaces and categories in various settings such as sport, sanitation, and detention, and the related framing of trans people’s rights as a fundamental threat to women’s rights.
