We Must Do More To Protect the Lives of Trans People: Trans Day of Remembrance 2021
On the occasion of the Trans Day of Remembrance (TDoR) 2021, TGEU has released a policy brief that outlines the latest data on the extraordinary violence and harassment trans people face on a daily basis. The document explains why trans people are at such great risk and calls on policymakers at national and EU level to act now to prevent further violence and deaths.
Trans Day of Remembrance 2021 policy brief
Trans people experience extraordinary violence – physical, sexual, social, emotional, and psychological – on a daily basis. Trans people with intersecting experiences like migration, sex work, and Black trans and people of colour are at greatest risk. Indeed, a large share of trans victims of murder are consistently Black and migrant trans women of colour and trans sex workers.
2021 has seen the highest number of deaths reported to TGEU’s Trans Murder Monitoring project since recording began, with 375 murders reported this year alone. Of those killed globally, 96% were trans women or transfeminine people, and of those whose profession was known, 58% were trans sex workers.
Trans people are not safe in Europe and Central Asia. This situation is outrageous and unacceptable, and it must be changed.
We call upon EU-bodies to ensure:
- the recognition of anti-trans violence as a particularly grave form of crime that goes against EU values and that has hence a cross-border dimension;
- a trans-sensitive implementation of the Victims’ Rights Directive; and
- work towards all EU Member States including gender identity and gender expression as a bias motivation in hate crime and hate speech legislation.
Among other things, we call upon national governments to:
- combat the anti-gender movement and anti-trans rhetoric that leads to further acts of violence against trans and gender non-conforming people every day;
- enable quick, transparent, and accessible legal gender recognition procedures based on self-determination; and
- decriminalise all aspects of sex work with meaningful involvement of sex worker communities.
Protecting trans lives is on all of us.