Trans rights
Definitions and confusion.
A transexual person is a person who feels they are the wrong sex and wishes to change to the other, eg a male-to-female transexual. Transexuals are therefore different from intersexed and intergendered persons. An intersexed person shares the physical attributes of both the male and female body. An intergendered person is a person whose sexual identity – their gender – comes somewhere between male and female.
The preferred word for all transexual and transgendered persons is “trans”. The number of trans people in the UK is estimated to be in the range of 10,000 to 20,000.
a:Gender, a UK support group for trans people in the civil service, discovered that during its first year of operation 50% of the membership of one of their local groups committed suicide within six months of coming out as trans. That stark statistic is a frightening measure of the level of stress and problems trans people go through and they deserve our support. A:Gender can be contacted on 020 7035 4253.
Under the sex discrimination (gender reassignment) regulations 1999 it is unlawful to discriminate against or harass anyone on the grounds that the person intends to undergo, is undergoing, or has undergone, treatment to change their biological sex.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into effect at the end of 2004.
The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) regulations, 1999
The Employers’ Guide to gender reassignment is now available from the DTI.
The Gender Recognition Act permits ‘gender recognition certificate’, but does not affect pension rights. So someone who transed from male to female at the age of 64 would have to wait until 65 for their pension, but if it had been the other way, would have qualified at 60, under the current rules. Pension ages are changing but the current rules have been ruled as discriminatory by the EU court, which stated that the situation did not comply with European laws on equal treatment.
The links on this page were checked and corrected on 8 Dec 2008.
