our good practices

We have started our supporting activity by organising different self-help meetings and activities, which were supposed to be a brief introduction to the transgender problem, but it has rapidly come to our attention that it is not enough.

I would like to characterize some of the problems (law/social/medical and others) that transgender people in Poland have to face everyday. It will, however, be done by cataloguing all the practices that should help changing the situation of transgender people in Poland.

1.Changing the law concerning possibility of sex reassignment (legal and physical)

This issue actually consists of two different ones. First of all – legal aspects of sex change in Poland. It was made possible in 1978 by order of the Supreme Court and has been confirmed in 1989 and in 1995, but since then there no bill has been written that would clearly name all the steps needed to fulfil before a person attempts to change their ID, driver's license etc.
That is why Trans-Fuzja teamed up with a group of lawyers from Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The main goal is to universalize sex change law so it could finally be treated equally in the whole country (because it has not been done yet, there are places in Poland, like Wrocław, where FTM transsexuals can get new documents without mastectomy, however, according to other laws on wounding with intent etc. it should be illegal)
Another problem is the fact that transsexual surgeries are not included in the Polish National Health Care program even though they were until about 2003. At this moment it is possible to have surgery in a non-private hospital, but it still does not mean that the patients get it for free. Reinstating the refund is one of our primary goals. If a person cannot finance this procedure on their own and therefore cannot change their ID, they are trapped between genders and their social functioning is seriously disturbed. Needles to say it is an inconvenience that has to be dealt with.

2.Special (non-mandatory) IDs for transgender people

Since a lot of people in transition (and transvestites) have trouble while being checked by the police and all other organizations that have similar authority, our organization has found a way to change the social situation of those people. We want to use the idea that has a very good reception in France and Netherlands and is known as the Gender Identification Card (GID).
Trans-Fuzja has already presented this idea to the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection and his response was positive. We are now waiting for a response from the Ministry of Interior and Administration.

3.Trying to make the public more aware of discrimination against transsexuals in military

Transsexualism and intersexualism are on the list of “Disease and deformities” that prohibit a person from joining the army. These two conditions are put in the first chapter titled “Body build”. That is, however, not the end. Transsexuals, during the army medical examination, receive automatically an “E” category, which means that they are never to serve in the military, even during the war.
This issue was also presented to the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection in a form of a document that listed all the problems of transgender discrimination. He did not answer to this paper yet.

4.Educating the professionals on sexual orientation of transgender people

Another issue that concern us is the fact that in Poland most of the psychologists who treat transsexualism (their opinion determines if a person starts hormone therapy) seem to be heterocentred. There are known a few cases of transsexuals that were denied treatment after confessing that they are gay (FTMs attracted to men and MTFs attracted to women). However, it is also known that MTF lesbians are much more tolerated than gay FTMs, no one seems to be that shocked when a transwoman was previously married and even had children, but when the same happens for transmen – their diagnosis takes a lot more time and sometimes ends with forfending therapy.
Trans-Fuzja is constantly informing transgender people that their sexual orientation is not an issue when it comes to sex change. We are also trying to push the case further to the professionals by participating as guest speakers during lectures for psychology students.

5.Encouraging people to come out as transgender individuals

Recently, some of our activists were interviewed for a LGBT magazine Replika, our president – Anna Grodzka – has openly declared being a transsexual woman several times on national television. The purpose of these interviews is going into public with all the aspects of transgenderism. We believe that the more people are aware of transpeople in their society, the less they stay hostile to them. This is one of the ways to fight transphobia in Poland, which – unfortunately – still remains on a very high level.

Wiktor "Latarnik" Dynarski