Global trans perspectives on health and wellbeing TvT community report

Stigma and extreme violence against trans and gender-diverse people1
are a
global reality. In many countries in the Global South and East2 political contexts
and legal and social persecution often limit access to data. Lack of research

and critical analysis add to erasure and marginalisation of trans and gender-
diverse people. This report draws on activism and research of the TvT team

regarding the health of trans and gender-diverse people in the Global South
and East, viewing health as more than just the absence of illness.
The Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT) project was created
in 2009 to provide a global overview of the human rights situation of trans and
gender-diverse people and develop advocacy tools for trans rights activists.
Our team consists of trans activists from around the world who coordinate and
implement the research in their respective regions.3
“Heteronormativity [...] is produced in almost every aspect of the forms and
arrangements of social life: nationality, the state, and the law; commerce,
medicine and education, as well as in the conventions and affects of narrativity,
romance, and other protected spaces of culture.”4

If we take cisnormativity or
endonormativity as concepts that make use of these critical lenses on sexual
orientation to regard gender identities and expressions and bodily diversities,
we can analyse more complexly how the mechanisms that compound this
system, made by and for cisgender and endosex people, disregard the
existence of other bodies, gender identities and expressions, and permeate
our lives in ways that are not always obvious.
Trans health or access to health for trans people in the Global South and
East exist in a neo-colonialist framework, shaped by the legacy of colonisation
and the structures it imposed: social, political, and economic violence, cultural
changes, dictatorships, and warfare all impact the lives of LGBTI people and
other pre-existent indigenous identities, such as Muxhes in Mexico, Omeguid
in Panama, Hijras in India, Fa’afafines in the Pacific, and many others.
Globally, there are wide disparities in access to healthcare for trans people.
In some parts of Europe and Latin America, trans-specific care is covered by
national health insurance, while in parts of Asia and Africa, it is unavailable and,
sometimes, illegal. Furthermore, pathologisation creates abusive practices that

violate trans people’s right to dignity, bodily integrity, autonomy, and non-
discrimination, fuelling stigma and violence.