7 April 2022 — Publication on the Legal Situations for Trans People, Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia
On 7 April 2022, an article by Nora Noralla was published on The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy website. In the article, the writer researched existing legal frameworks and case law in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia, and interviewed activists, experts and trans people about their experience.
Noralla writes:
“Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia lack clear avenues for transgender people to obtain legal gender recognition, increasing their vulnerability to abuses by security forces such as arbitrary arrests, and to systemic discrimination in healthcare, housing, and employment. Medical and judicial authorities in these countries arbitrarily restrict access to legal gender recognition based on misinformed perspectives that see transgender identities as pathological.
In the absence of the necessary legal and regulatory frameworks to grant such recognition, judicial authorities in the three countries are tasked with reviewing individual gender recognition applications submitted by transgender people. Laden with obstacles, this process is protracted (it can take from three to ten years), expensive, and inaccessible to most transgender people. Due to the absence of legislative frameworks for granting legal gender recognition, it is up to individual judges in each country to make decisions based on their interpretation of the law. Judicial authorities often require transgender applicants to have completed all surgical and hormonal interventions before reviewing their cases. The judicial forensic medical authorities are often tasked with examining transgender applicants to ensure they meet this requirement. Transgender people face significant obstacles to receiving gender-affirming healthcare in the three countries.
Although none of the three countries criminalize transgender identity, security forces often conflate it with sexual orientation, perceiving transgender women as gay men and transgender men as lesbian women, who are prosecuted under various laws. The discrepancy between transgender people’s official documents and gender expression makes them vulnerable to police abuse, including harassment and arbitrary arrests. Transgender detainees in Egypt and Lebanon are often placed in cells that do not reflect their gender identity, or in solitary confinement for lack of alternatives. Transgender people in such facilities endure ill-treatment that can amount to torture, such as forced anal examinations, a discredited practice to “prove” same-sex activity.”
The article goes on to describe the situations in each country in detail.