LinkPDF Report Link, Engendered Penalties: Transgender and Transsexual People's Experiences of Inequality and DiscriminationIt is the 'transphobic' response of other members of society that results in trans
people experiencing inequality or discrimination. Whatever the basis for that
response, the evidence from the many cases that have gone before UK tribunals
and courts, and the European courts, indicates that trans people's experiences
of inequalities and discrimination should not be dismissed as them being
'over-sensitive'.
Recent research by Hill and Willoughby (2005) reviewed the current academic
knowledge on the experience of the effects of transphobia in various settings.
Most research on the subject of transgender has reported high levels of
victimisation including harassment by strangers on the street, verbal abuse, assault
with a weapon, and/or sexual assault (Gagne et al. 1996 and Lombardi et al.
2001 cited in Hill and Willoughby 2005), trauma and sexual assault as children
and adolescents (Gehring and Knudson 2005, Ryan and Rivers 2003) and this is
further supported by the work of Moran and Sharpe 2004, Xavier 2000 and
Whittle 2002.
Hill and Willoughby (2005) critique some of the data they review, questioning
whether it was representative and whether the results relating mostly to trans
women could be transferred to represent the experience of trans men. They also
cite a 1986 study which showed that, as a group, health professionals appeared
to now:
support the basic human rights of transsexuals with only minor and specific
reservations about transsexuals as a group (Franzine and Casinelli 1986).
This assumption is just one of many that this study will challenge.
