International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event occurring on March 31 dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide, as well as a celebration of their contributions to society.
Transgender and gender-diverse people experience significant levels of stigma, discrimination and violence. These may be structural (i.e. manifested in laws, policies and institutionalized practices) or societal (i.e. due to rejection, mistreatment and social exclusion and lack of gender recognition by others). Both hinder the availability, access and uptake of HIV prevention, testing, treatment, care and support services and other sexual and reproductive health services, including gender affirming care.
Key messages
Stigma, discrimination and violence can also prevent people from having a safe and protective family and community environment, and create barriers to education, employment and social services.
Stigma and discrimination based on gender identity often intersect with other forms of discrimination, for example, based on disability, ethnicity, race, HIV status, drug use, involvement in sex work or socioeconomic status.
The criminalization of transgender and gender-diverse people is widespread, as is the imposition of other punitive laws, practices and policies against this population. Such laws help perpetuate stigma, discrimination, hate crimes, police abuse, torture, ill-treatment and family and community violence.
Stigma, discrimination and criminalization all compound to render transgender and gender-diverse people invisible, with extreme forms of discrimination leading to the negation of the existence of gender-diverse persons. This in turn has lead to a severe lack of data on transgender and gender-diverse people and their health.
“Stigma and discrimination steals our identity as human beings, destroying us, turning us into unimportant people, who can be abused, mistreated, violated. So, the support of our families is critical because the world outside is cruel and destructive,” says Rihanna Borges from Brazil
Key facts
Transgender and gender-diverse people have a right to be protected from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, including in accessing health services. This includes removing laws that criminalize or are used to target people based on their gender identity.
States have an obligation to provide HIV services in a manner that is acceptable and accessible to transgender and gender diverse people, in a manner that is non-stigmatizing and without discrimination, and integrated with broader transgender and gender diverse specific services beyond HIV. Mental health services should be made available alongside HIV services to people living with HIV and key populations, including transgender and gender-diverse people.
As a consequence of discrimination, the risk of acquiring HIV is 20 times higher among transgender and gender-diverse people than among the rest of the adult population. Access to HIV services is lower for transgender people than for the rest of the population.
Studies show that transgender people who have experienced stigma in health care are three times more likely to avoid health care than transgender people who have not experienced stigma.
Stigma and discrimination have been found to have a profound negative impact on mental health for transgender people, which can in turn affect vulnerability to HIV and access to care.
A study on the impact of law reforms to allow change of gender on identity documents found that the introduction of the law led the percentage of transgender women interviewed reporting stigma and discrimination to fall from 80% to 30%, and led the percentage of transgender women interviewed reporting needing to abandon their education due to stigma to fall from 49% to 4%.
Read more about priority and key populations, especially transgender people, and the path to 2025 targets:
Reducing health inequities through tailored and systemic responses (PDF)
Reducing health inequities through tailored and systemic responses (PPT)
2021 Fact Sheet | HIV and transgender people & other gender-diverse people
“If we come to get services or to get checked for HIV, we often get lectures with the purpose to ‘cure’ us. Most of the time they blame our activities: ‘Well you know you are a man. Why do you want to be a woman?’” says Rere Agistya from Indonesia.
Tweets
Hashtags: #TDOV; #TransgenderDayofVisibility
X: Trans women face 20x higher HIV risk. Discrimination, violence, and criminalization limit access to vital HIV services. We must protect everyone’s rights to protect everyone’s health.
X: In 24 countries, transgender people face criminalization. Global marginalization, discrimination, and violence contribute to a 20x higher risk of HIV for transgender women. To protect the health of transgender people🏳️⚧️, we need to protect their rights.
X: Transgender and gender-diverse-led organizations should be centrally involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of HIV services for their communities. In 2023, UNAIDS supported @GATEOrg’s policy brief on the inclusion of transmen & transmasc persons in the global HIV response 👉🏼 https://gate.ngo/knowledge-portal/publication/policy-brief-on-effective-inclusion-of-trans-men-in-the-global-hiv-and-broader-health-and-development-responses-document/
X: Around the world, transgender and gender-diverse activists are making a difference in their communities through art, advocacy, community empowerment and more. Get to know 5 transgender people making a difference in their community and join their efforts to create a more inclusive world for people of all diversities!
"Being trans is not the problem. It is the reaction people have to it: throwing them on the streets, not letting them work, not taking them into schools. We need to have a place in society. It is hard. It will take a while. But someone has to start,” says Yaisah Val from Haiti.
Surviving is not living...Pietra Sousa knows all about overcoming inequalities
Pietra Sousa is a transgender woman from Brasilia. She is a singer and performer and believes in the power of community networks.
Her plea: Empower community networks. "I understand that inequalities exist, and it is not an individual issue or just about one person... I understand that overcoming them requires collective strength."