Transgender people: understanding, rights by country, life as a couple

The words

Transsexual is the word of the 1950s to 2000s: it comes from medicine, which spoke of "transsexualism" for people who sought hormonal and surgical transition. Many people know and search for it, which is why this section keeps it in its title; but the people concerned and official texts now say trans or transgender person, because being trans is no longer considered an illness (the WHO removed it from mental disorders in 2019) and is not reducible to operations — many have none. A trans woman is a person born male who lives as a woman; a trans man, the reverse; non-binary people recognise themselves in neither. Transition can be social (name, appearance), legal (documents) and medical (hormones, surgery), each person choosing their own. A cross-dresser dresses as the other sex without wishing to change it; a drag queen makes a show of it. Sexual orientation — whom one desires — is a separate question: a trans person can be straight, gay or bisexual.

Why this section, and for whom

For trans people themselves, looking for what their country's law allows, where to get care, how to live their relationship; for their partners, parents and friends; and for anyone who meets or might meet a trans person and wants to know how to behave with respect. This site is about couples, dating, health and law: being trans has its place under each of those headings, country by country, like everything else. There is no activism and no polemic here, only facts — including unpleasant ones: the countries that forbid, the violence, the debates about minors.

An overview country by country

Across the countries covered by this site the picture runs from one extreme to the other. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand allow a change of name and legal gender, by declaration or through a panel, with public health care covering part of medical transition; the United States is a patchwork of fifty state laws, with a federal government that since 2025 recognises only sex at birth on passports; India and Pakistan recognise a third gender by law while stigma remains heavy; Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and most of anglophone Africa have no procedure and laws that can punish gender expression as "homosexuality" or "impersonation"; South Africa is the continent's exception, with a recognition act since 2003. The page Changing legal gender: rights by country details all this, and the one on medical transition says where care can be found.