Mission Statement of TransGender Europe

Transgender Europe (TGEU) is a European network of trans and other organisations that support or work for the rights of transgender/transsexual/gender variant people, and like-minded individuals. The mission of TGEU is to support and strengthen the trans movement and to be a powerful lobby and advocacy organisation for trans rights in Europe and beyond.

Transgender Europe (TGEU)

- believes that the acknowledgment and acceptance of gender diversity is an integral part of a modern European society

- works for the empowerment and self determination all trans people*

- works to increase the visibility and acceptance of all trans people*

- works to ensure that all trans people in Europe are afforded:

• acknowledgement, respect and equality for  the trans self
• acknowledgement, respect and equality of the gender diversity of the trans community
• acknowledgement, respect of trans people’s human rights including legal equality
• acknowledgement, respect and equality of trans people as European citizens.

- works to combat the unlawful discrimination and unequal treatment experienced by trans people*

- opposes the continued exotisation of trans people* and the persistent pathologisation of gender variance as a mental disorder.

To achieve these goals TGEU>

- supported the Transgender EuroStudy in 2008,

- organized the Second European Transgender Council in May 2008 in Berlin

- organized trans activist trainings in different parts of Europe (Manchester 2008, Budapest 2009)

- briefed the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe in human rights questions related to trans

- is (re)presenting trans people* and trans issues in form of speeches, workshops, panels or roundtables at international and national conferences

Our main demands

After the First Transgender Council in Vienna in 2005, the attendees of the Council, representing a total of over 100 European and National Trans Support Groups, voted for the following Demands to be made of the European Community and the nations of the Community:

1. The Right to a Free choice of given name
2. The Right to change one's legally registered gender/sex in all documents, to the gender/sex of the preferred gender role. This Right to be free of any prerequisites such as any required or forced psychological, psychotherapeutic or psychiatric assessment or treatment; a requirement for a medical/psychological diagnosis of 'gender dysphoria', 'gender identity disorder' or 'transsexualism'; hormonal treatment; invasive or non-invasive sex or gender reassignment surgery; sterilisation or infertility; and any requirement to be unmarried, or never married or to proceed with a divorce.
3. The Inclusion of Trans people in all Anti discrimination juridical case law, legislative programme or administrative policies in all European Union national treaties and legislation
4. The creation of a European wide programme of Protective Services opposed to Transphobic or other 'gender variant' related hate crimes.
5. The development of social, legal and administrative respect for the family lives of Trans people and their loved ones.
6. The Right to a Free choice of medical practitioners for all Trans people, regardless of national borders, and health care policies.
7. The Right to Political asylum for all those Trans people from Third Party nations, who are or will be prosecuted on grounds of their gender variance or sexual behaviour if returned to their own, or another, third party nation state.
8. The provision of European and National funding of sufficient support and education organisations on matters of concern to Trans people.
9. That European and Nation states include Trans, gender variant and queer concerns to be included in their Youth Welfare Programmes and legislation, including the development of Special Protections for trans and other gender variant children and adolescents, and the funding of specific trans-youth welfare, support and care projects.

* Trans people (as used above) includes those people who have a gender identity which is  
different to the gender assigned at birth and those people who wish to portray their gender identity in a different way to the gender assigned at birth. It includes those people who feel they have to, or prefer or choose to, whether by clothing, accessories, cosmetics or body modification, present themselves differently to the expectations of the gender role assigned to them at birth. This includes, among many others, transsexual and transgender people, transvestites, cross dressers, no gender, multigender, genderqueer people, including intersex and gender variant people who relate to or identify as any of the above.