Transgender issues in the modern world

Audrey MbuguaShe became the butt of jokes for years because her fellow students could not understand  why she chose to live the way she did. Audrey says that at the end of her third year in campus, she was really depressed and stressed out. 

In March,2009 Audrey was supposed to get a sex reassignment surgery after a series of evolutions from a number of doctors. On the day of the surgery, the director of the Kenyatta National Hospital said that he had received a call from the Kenyan Health Minister to hold off. Two weeks later she was told that the doctors were not ready. She however discovered it was a lost cause when the hospital's legal officer told her to consult with the Attorney General on the legal framework on sex change in Kenya.

In December 2008, Audrey co-founded the organization Transgender Education and Advocacy to address the gross human rights violations and ignorance in the Kenyan community of facts concerning transsexualism. For example, when a transgender man was assaulted at a bar in downtown Nairobi, the group helped prosecute the attacker.

Transgender people face many challenges some of which include: Lack of legal protection whereby the legal system does not protect trans people from discrimination based on their gender identity.  

Stigma and harassment, for instance, for about half a decade ago only one quarter of people in the United States supported trans rights and support increased to 62% by the year 2019. Despite the progress, the trans community still face considerable stigma due to more than a century of being characterized as "mentally ill, socially deviant and sexually predatory". 

Crisis in identity documents is also a major challenge for the trans community, that is, the widespread lack of accurate identity among trans people can have an impact on every aspect of their lives, including access to emergency housing, public services and employment.

The violence and discrimination that transgender people  experience is deeply intersectional, with different forms of vulnerability shaped by race, gender, class, ability, nationality, among other factors. In 2020 for example, more than three-quarters ot the transgender and non-binary people killed in the United States were people of color, with black transgender women  at particular risk of violence. From 2016  to 2021, at least 88% of trans people killed in Florida, 91% of trans people killed in Ohio and 90% of trans people killed in Texas were people of color.

Data suggests that compounding effects of discrimination significantly limit transgender people's opportunities and ability to keep themselves safe. For example, when they are rejected by their families and kicked out of their homes at a young age, they are unable to get an education or find employment.

Catherine Syengo Mutisya is a consultant psychiatrist who has been involved  in the management of two transgender people in Kenya. She believes that in Kenya, most people with gender identity disorder do not disclose it but they are struggling with it. This is because they are afraid of the stigma associated with it.

Since 1999, advocates have gathered to commemorate transgender victims of violence on November 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, as of November, 2021 was the deadliest year yet of anti-transgender violence in the United States, exceeding the record 44 transgender people whose deaths were recorded the year before.

Governments have an obligation to respond to foreseeable threats to the life and bodily integrity of people including  by addressing patterns of violence against specific groups of people. As this report illustrates, governments are falling short of their international obligations to remedy the structural conditions that give rise to anti-transgender violence and to provide assistance and deliver justice to individuals when violence occurs.

To meet their human rights obligations, governments should adopt anti-discrimination protections to address structural discrimination that transgender people face, ensure that services are available and competent to serve transgender survivors and end practices that minimize and diminish the real effects of anti-transgender violence when it occurs. 

As a second year journalism student, and having seen people mistreat a trans person in my home town, I strongly believe that it's about time we make the world a safer space for them and help them live a normal life.

Remembrance 

There is need for the transsexual people to engage in the processes of legal and policy reforms - be it in the health sector, citizenship or even the education sector.Awareness should also be created among the general public so as to make the world a safe space for the transgender community.

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior  does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Being transgender is distinct from sexual orientation and transgender people may identity as heterosexual (straight), homosexual (gay or lesbian) or even bisexual.