PFC News, March 2, 2007: New Research Report on Trans people's life experience of inequalities and discrimination:

Engendered Penalties: Transgender and Transsexual People’s Experiences of Inequality and Discrimination
Authors: Stephen Whittle, Lewis Turner and Maryam Al-Alami, (Crown Copyright 2007)

Available online (122 page 934kb PDF file):

http://www.theequalitiesreview.org.uk/upload/assets/www.theequalitiesreview.org.uk/transgender.pdf
 

This 95 page report was commissioned by the UK Government's Equalities Review. As a consequence of the report's findings, the UK Government has announced that transgender will be a protected category (along with sex & gender; race & ethnicity; physical or mental disability; religion & faith; age; and sexual orientation) for the new Equalities and Human Rights Commission that starts work in October 2007.

Clearly this is a great leap forward for the trans community in the UK, but much more important is the report's findings on the extent of inequality and unlawful discrimination experienced by trans people in a modern European, liberal, society. The empirical and qualitative report's findings were based upon an analysis of over 100,000 emails, a survey with 873 respondents, and interviews.

Starting in early childhood and through to the grave, trans people face repeated and ongoing prejudice which results in violence, abuse, institutionalised discrimination and 'othering' throughout all aspects of their lives. The evidence threw up some new and interesting results which challenge current understandings of the trans community and the people in it. These include evidence that tomboys experience more abuse at school than sissy boys, and that many lifelong  'transvestites' would be transssexual if it were not for their fear of workplace discrimination.


Stephen Whittle, PhD, MA, LLB, BA
Professor of Equalities Law
The School of Law
Manchester Metropolitan University
All Saints West
Lower Ormond Street
Manchester, M15 6HB
tel: 0161 247 6444, fax: 0161 247 6309
email: at this link