Schools 'should let' children change gender
By
YVONNE MARTIN - The Press | Friday, 18 January 2008
A ground-breaking inquiry by the Human Rights Commission is
calling for law changes to recognise the rights of transgender people,
including allowing children to change gender at school.
Its report, released
today, recommends the Human Rights Act be amended, adding "gender" to
the grounds of discrimination to reinforce that transgenders are protected by
law.
It also wants simpler
procedures for changing sex on passports, birth certificates and other legal
documents so they match a transgender's identity.
The 18-month inquiry,
believed to be a world first of its type, found that four out of five
transgender people had experienced discrimination - at school, work, in the
street, and in daily interactions with shops, government agencies and health
professionals.
Discrimination against
transgender (or "trans") children at school came in for particular
attention.
Some schools refused to
acknowledge a change to a birth name, ignored bullying or got into conflicts
with trans children about what they wore to school.
"There is a need
for schools to think about how to be flexible with the rules to make sure that
kids do participate," said Human Rights Commissioner Joy Liddicoat, who
led the inquiry.
"Can you imagine
your child going off to school in the morning and hiding behind a bush to
change their clothes and then bracing themselves for a conflict with their
teacher just about what they are wearing?" she said.
One person told the
inquiry she legally changed her name when she was 16.
However, her high
school refused to issue school reports under that name and required her to use
the male toilets and changing rooms, where she was harassed.
The report says
transgender children should be able to play sport and use appropriate changing
rooms and toilets without fear, humiliation or embarrassment.
One positive initiative
was a group set up three years ago called SS4Q (Safety in Schools for Queers)
to improve safety by educating about diverse gender identities, it said.
A common-sense approach
often worked in dealing with the needs of transgender children, said Liddicoat.
"We heard of two
Christchurch schools that allow some of their young trans people to mix
different elements of the school uniform.
"So they are still
wearing the school uniform, but they are allowed to wear different parts of
it," she said.
"It's practical
Kiwi ingenuity, making things work so people can get on with it. Those sorts of
things, with some goodwill, can be done reasonably easily."
The commission met 200
transgender people, their families, colleagues, community groups, health
professionals, academics and government agencies.
The trans people were
farmers, doctors, teachers, artists, tradespeople and office workers. An
11-year-old trans boy was the youngest, and the oldest were in their 70s.
They spoke of problems
accessing health services and getting their gender status legally recognised in
documents. At worst, trans people suffered constant harassment and savage
assaults.
"It did make us
feel sad that we've got this sector of the community that experiences such high
levels of discrimination that they just come to expect it," said
Liddicoat.
"They have come to
expect that they are going to be treated badly by most people -- not all the
time, but for at least some point on their journey. That needs to change.
"It is
challenging, but there is a huge diversity of transgender people. They exist
and they shouldn't be experiencing the huge levels of discrimination that they
are."
The commission accepts
discrimination complaints from trans people on the grounds of "sex",
but questions have been raised by international case law on what would be
considered as discrimination by New Zealand courts.
To avoid doubt, the
inquiry recommended "gender identity" be added as a specific cause
for complaint. The size of the transgender population is unknown.
However, in April last
year almost 400 people had New Zealand passports that marked their sex as
indeterminate.
Since 1995, 114 people
have applied to the Family Court to change the sex details on their birth
certificates.
While recommending
improving the access of trans people to health services, including sex-changing
surgery, the inquiry stopped short of suggesting more public money be used for
this purpose.
The Ministry of Health
funds a maximum of four operations every two years - three male-to-female
operations and one female to male.
"Ninety per cent
of transgender people actually go privately. They pay for it all themselves,"
Liddicoat said.
Transsexual former MP
Georgina Beyer today welcomed the report and urged the Government to adopt its
recommendations.
"What it would do
is further assimilation into society of a marginalised group who tend to be
forgotten, dismissed and given no particular importance as far as their life is
concerned," she told NZPA.
"The majority of
them end up becoming burdens on society because of the way we treat them and
here is an opportunity to give them tools by which they can integrate and
become positive contributors to our society."
Ms Beyer, who was
herself a submitter to the inquiry, said many people were ignorant when it came
to transgender people and that tended to generate fear.
When she was mayor of
Carterton parents of children showing transgender tendencies would approach
her.
In one case parents had
decided to let their 11-year-old boy express his identity through wearing
girls' clothes but bullying had forced a change of school and eventually
adverse community reaction forced the family to move.
People needed to be
educated about research that suggested transgender tendencies were a congenital
issue rather than a lifestyle one, Ms Beyer said.
- with NZPA