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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Transgender in T&T

What does the law say?

by

20150720

Does some­one wake up one morn­ing and hap­haz­ard­ly de­cide that they no longer want to be the sex they were born as?

Not re­al­ly, psy­chol­o­gists say. A num­ber of fac­tors play piv­otal roles in the de­ci­sion to change one's gen­der. In fact, re­search has shown that it is quite of­ten than not, bi­o­log­i­cal.

This is al­so the view of lo­cal psy­chol­o­gist Dr Kei­th Lequay who told the T&T Guardian sex­u­al­i­ty and gen­der have a lot to do with ge­net­ics and hor­mones. Lequay said some­one can be male but their gen­der fe­male. He ex­plained some­one's phys­i­cal pack­age may ap­pear to be one thing but that doesn't chime with the per­son's psy­che and men­tal­i­ty.

"There­fore, when you hear some­one say they al­ways felt they were in the wrong body, this is what you should un­der­stand. It is not that they are ex­per­i­ment­ing or try­ing to be what they are not. It is them ac­tu­al­ly try­ing to be their au­then­tic selves.

Van­i­ty Fair's Ju­ly edi­tion–head­lined Call Me Cait­lyn–fea­tured for­mer Olympic de­cathlon cham­pi­on and re­al­i­ty tele­vi­sion dad, Bruce Jen­ner, with long chest­nut hair and wear­ing a silky pearl white basque that re­vealed 36D breast im­plants. This cov­er set so­cial me­dia buzzing with some fol­low­ers on the trans­gen­der Cait­lyn Jen­ner's Twit­ter ac­count ei­ther tweet­ing love and sup­port or their shock and dis­plea­sure at the Kar­dashi­an clan step­fa­ther's tran­si­tion.

Lo­cal­ly, al­most every ra­dio talk show host made it a hot top­ic and in­vit­ed lis­ten­ers to call in and com­ment. Once again, there were of­fer­ings of sup­port and out­right ex­pres­sions of dis­gust.

Jen­ner's pub­lic tran­si­tion or change of gen­der is not the first for a celebri­ty and prob­a­bly won't be the last.

In 1975, Amer­i­can ten­nis play­er Richard Raskind made the tran­si­tion to be­come Re­nee Richards. Late­ly, French su­per­mod­el In­es Rau, Amer­i­can ac­tress Lav­erne Cox, writer and trans­gen­der ac­tivist Janet Mock and Chaz Bono, son of pop singer Cher are among the no­table ex­am­ples of peo­ple who made the gen­der tran­si­tion. Jow­elle de Souza will run as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West in the up­com­ing elec­tion is this coun­try's most high-pro­file trans­gen­der per­son.

The T&T Guardian ap­proached de Souza and oth­er lo­cal trans­gen­der peo­ple to share their sto­ries, but was un­suc­cess­ful.

Jen­ner has said she al­ways felt she was born in the wrong body and had these feel­ings as ear­ly as age five. The 1976 Olympic cham­pi­on al­so said she hid her "true self."

"This is quite pos­si­ble and re­al," Lequay said. "And be­cause this has not yet been so­cial­ly ac­cept­ed and many peo­ple still be­lieve it to be some sick twist­ed work of a de­ment­ed mind, there have been many tragedies among this com­mu­ni­ty.

"Many have com­mit­ted sui­cide be­cause they could not deal with the pres­sure of so­ci­ety and sup­press­ing their au­then­tic selves for much longer," said Lequay.

He said it may take some time, but ed­u­ca­tion is need­ed. Such ed­u­ca­tion, Lequay said, must be frank and open, so that peo­ple are more sen­si­tised and aware and can be­come more ac­cept­ing or tol­er­ant of trans­gen­der peo­ple.

Trans­gen­der and law in T&T

When it comes to leg­is­la­tion on the rights of trans­gen­der peo­ple, T&T and oth­er Com­mon­wealth Caribbean states are sore­ly lag­ging be­hind. Col­in Robin­son, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (Caiso), told the T&T Guardian there is lit­tle le­gal lit­er­a­cy about these is­sues, and past court de­ci­sions demon­strate how lit­tle un­der­stand­ing of hu­man sex and gen­der di­ver­si­ty there is among those on the bench.

Robin­son added, Caiso's in­ter­ven­tions with those in lead­ing pub­lic hos­pi­tals and in Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy­mak­ing re­veal sim­i­lar mis­un­der­stand­ings or ig­no­rance about trans­gen­derism and in­ter­sex­u­al­i­ty that would make it dif­fi­cult for pol­i­cy lead­er­ship and ad­vo­ca­cy for ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal re­form to emerge from those sec­tors.

"Some cul­tures recog­nise on­ly two sex­es. Some cul­tures, like our own in­dige­nous ones, recog­nise a third or "two-spir­it" cat­e­go­ry. But in our con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety, like most west­ern ones that colonised us, gen­der is seen as a bi­na­ry. Le­gal sys­tems re­flect this bi­na­ry no­tion of gen­der, and with peo­ple as­signed to one sex im­me­di­ate­ly at birth, sex shapes a lot of what is pos­si­ble for them in the law," said Robin­son.

He con­tin­ued: "Ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in Caiso's ex­pe­ri­ence have been par­tic­u­lar­ly in­tran­si­gent with trans­gen­der stu­dents, con­sis­tent with their his­tor­i­cal colo­nial mis­sion of im­pos­ing rules. There is no frame­work in the law that re­quires forms of ID is­sued by non-state en­ti­ties to ac­com­mo­date gen­der-con­form­ing ap­pear­ance.

"We are not aware of any for­mal pol­i­cy on this mat­ter, even for gov­ern­ment-is­sued doc­u­ments, eg health cards; their is­suance may be sub­ject to the whim of a su­per­vi­sor."

Sex on iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments

Robin­son al­so point­ed out the com­pli­ca­tions faced by this com­mu­ni­ty when it comes to le­gal doc­u­ments.

He said in our le­gal sys­tems, there is no mech­a­nism for chang­ing sex for any pub­lic health or hu­man rights rea­son.

"Though our habit of en­forc­ing our per­son­al moral­i­ty in de­liv­ery of pub­lic goods and ser­vices some­times makes this process com­pli­cat­ed, there are no laws to pre­vent a man or a woman whose birth is reg­is­tered as one sex from legal­ly chang­ing his/her name to a name that is seen as fe­ma­le­or male re­spec­tive­ly," Robin­son said.

"Sim­i­lar­ly, a man with a fem­i­nine ap­pear­ance or a woman with a mas­cu­line ap­pear­ance is not legal­ly barred from be­ing pho­tographed as such for a na­tion­al iden­ti­ty doc­u­ment. So peo­ple can change their na­tion­al iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments to show a new name and ap­pear­ance that re­flect their gen­der.

"But the per­son's sex as­signed at birth re­mains un­changed, and this can of­ten present prob­lems when stopped by the po­lice or in­spect­ed by im­mi­gra­tion, when sus­pi­cions as to false iden­ti­ty and crim­i­nal in­tent may arise," Robin­son ex­plained.

He high­light­ed the case of a trans­gen­der Be­lizean na­tion­al en­ter­ing T&T for a con­fer­ence who dis­closed she was trans­gen­der was sub­ject­ed to sec­ondary in­spec­tion due her gen­der be­ing male on her pass­port. Dur­ing the process, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers made her a spec­ta­cle by spread­ing word among their ranks and sev­er­al ven­tured to the area she was asked to wait to get a bet­ter look.

"Gen­der-non-con­form­ing iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments can al­so present prob­lems when ex­er­cis­ing the right to fran­chise, or in every­day sit­u­a­tions like bank­ing trans­ac­tions where ver­i­fi­ca­tion of iden­ti­ty is nec­es­sary for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.

"In oth­er coun­tries, the rec­om­men­da­tion of a health/hu­man ser­vice pro­fes­sion­al is all that is nec­es­sary to change sex on an iden­ti­ty doc­u­ment. The ra­tio­nale of this ap­proach is that gen­der-non-con­form­ing doc­u­ments en­dan­ger a per­son's se­cu­ri­ty when trav­el­ling abroad, es­pe­cial­ly to places less ac­cept­ing of gen­der di­ver­si­ty or where it may be read as ev­i­dence of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, which is crim­i­nalised and a source of vi­o­lence."

Bla­tant dis­crim­i­na­tion

He said oth­er ar­eas of im­por­tance to be con­sid­ered when con­sid­er­ing leg­is­la­tion in­clude health and sex-seg­re­gat­ed in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties. Robin­son said a few years ago one woman dropped out of Costaat when she dis­creet­ly dis­closed her iden­ti­ty to school au­thor­i­ties, asked to use such a fa­cil­i­ty, but was told af­ter a re­view that she would have to use the male stu­dents' toi­let.

She even­tu­al­ly filed a case with the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC), which threw it out as not be­ing cov­ered un­der the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act, which in­cludes in its pro­tect­ed sta­tus­es sex, but nei­ther gen­der iden­ti­ty or ex­pres­sion. Sub­se­quent­ly, she suc­cess­ful­ly sought asy­lum in Eu­rope, based on per­se­cu­tion here due to her trans­gen­der sta­tus.

"That EOC prece­dent au­gurs bad­ly for trans­gen­ders' ac­cess to fu­ture pro­tec­tion by the sex dis­crim­i­na­tion pro­vi­sion of the EOA, de­spite the com­mis­sion's sub­se­quent rec­om­men­da­tion of statu­to­ry in­clu­sion of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion in the act," Robin­son said. "

A strict read­ing of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion might not ap­ply to most trans­gen­der peo­ple, who in their new gen­der are usu­al­ly het­ero­sex­u­al."

Robin­son al­so spoke about Jow­ell de Souza, who he said has been a vic­tim of con­stant ridicule be­cause of her ap­pear­ance. He was crit­i­cal of sto­ries that ap­peared af­ter she an­nounced her in­ten­tion to fight the elec­tion.

Al­though she re­ceived sup­port from some politi­cians, one dai­ly news­pa­per en­cour­aged con­ser­v­a­tive cler­gy­men to de­bate her right to run for leg­isla­tive of­fice. They sug­gest­ed her trans­gen­der sta­tus might dis­qual­i­fy her be­cause she would have "an agen­da."

"In oth­er words peo­ple made il­le­git­i­mate by the law ought not to have a right to change it," Robin­son said.

He said re­li­gious groups in the re­gion are fight­ing hard to main­tain this, mak­ing ad­vances in rights for gay and les­bian peo­ple much more like­ly than for trans­gen­der and in­ter­sex peo­ple who are more mis­un­der­stood and mis­treat­ed.

"If we were to look at it this way, small mi­nori­ties of peo­ple in nat­ur­al hu­man di­ver­si­ty are left-hand­ed. There is nat­ur­al di­ver­si­ty in sex and gen­der, too. While the ma­jor­i­ty of hu­mans are ca­pa­ble of a range of erot­ic arousal, on­ly small mi­nori­ties de­vel­op pri­ma­ry and en­dur­ing erot­ic at­trac­tion to peo­ple of the same sex," Robin­son said.

"For even small­er num­bers of peo­ple, one of two things hap­pens; they have or de­vel­op a bod­i­ly ap­pear­ance that has sex char­ac­ter­is­tics not clear­ly iden­ti­fi­able as male or fe­male or has char­ac­ter­is­tics iden­ti­fi­able as both or they have a bod­i­ly ap­pear­ance read­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able as one sex but they have or de­vel­op a root­ed per­son­al iden­ti­ty re­lat­ed to the gen­der of the oth­er sex. In third-gen­der cul­tures, they would be third gen­der.

"Bi­na­ry gen­der sys­tems and their le­gal frame­works of­ten need to adapt when coun­tries in which they live wish to pro­tect and en­sure the health and wel­fare of peo­ple with such ex­pe­ri­ences, which in­clude in­ter­sex and trans­gen­der peo­ple. The needs of both groups of­ten over­lap," the Caiso head said.

Hu­man sex­u­al­i­ty vs gen­der

Hu­man sex­u­al­i­ty refers to one's sex­u­al in­ter­est and at­trac­tion for oth­ers, and their ca­pac­i­ty to have erot­ic ex­pe­ri­ences and re­spons­es. A per­son's sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is their emo­tion­al and sex­u­al at­trac­tion to a par­tic­u­lar sex (male or fe­male), and of­ten shapes their sex­u­al­i­ty.

Gen­der is a term that refers to so­cial or cul­tur­al dis­tinc­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with be­ing male or fe­male, and is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be a so­cial­ly con­struct­ed con­cept.

Ac­cord­ing to Wikipedia, a trans­gen­der is the state of one's gen­der iden­ti­ty or gen­der ex­pres­sion not match­ing one's as­signed sex. Trans­gen­der is in­de­pen­dent of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion; trans­gen­der peo­ple may iden­ti­fy as het­ero­sex­u­al, ho­mo­sex­u­al, bi­sex­u­al, asex­u­al, etc; some may con­sid­er con­ven­tion­al sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion la­bels in­ad­e­quate or in­ap­plic­a­ble to them. The de­f­i­n­i­tion of trans­gen­der in­cludes:

�2 Of, re­lat­ing to, or des­ig­nat­ing a per­son whose iden­ti­ty does not con­form un­am­bigu­ous­ly to con­ven­tion­al no­tions of male or fe­male gen­der roles, but com­bines or moves be­tween these.

�2 Peo­ple who were as­signed a sex, usu­al­ly at birth and based on their gen­i­tals, but who feel that this is a false or in­com­plete de­scrip­tion of them­selves.

�2 Non-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with, or non-pre­sen­ta­tion as, the sex (and as­sumed gen­der) one was as­signed at birth.

�2 It should be not­ed a trans­gen­der should nev­er be mis­tak­en for a trans­ves­tite. They are two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent things. A trans­ves­tite is a per­son, typ­i­cal­ly a man, who de­rives plea­sure from dress­ing in clothes ap­pro­pri­ate to the op­po­site sex.


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