Background document: Input from the civil society

19th Experts’ Forum meeting

To get the views of the key partners in the civil society, the Institute, consulted its main partners – Social Platform and the European Women’s Lobby. Both organisations support to have the Gender Equality Index updated yearly, with a specific focus. The proposed focus domains for the index made by the European Women’s lobby are time, power and money. Both organisations encourage the Institute to take the intersectionality approach when analysing all the domains and with the representatives of civil society to assess where are the data gaps in understanding the phenomena (assessing what data is needed to get a comprehensive picture of a particular domain, such as taking into account ethnicity, age groups of 65+, gender identity, disabilities etc. For Social Platform the domain of work is very relevant, with the focus of care work and domestic work and with the perspective of migrant status.

The European Women’s Lobby encourages EIGE to think on the ways how to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, by working on examples and case studies.

In the area of gender mainstreaming the European Women’s Lobby highlights the necessity of working forward with gender budgeting by collecting further methods and tools. Social Platform stresses the need of looking more in depth of the policy area of migration, and the specific situation for migrant women and men.

The Social Platform supports its member organisation Transgender Europe’s proposal (see attachment 1) to EIGE to look at the possibilities of conceptualising gender broadly so that the transgender people are also covered in different aspects in EIGE’s work and when the data is not available that this fact would also be highlighted.

Social Platform and its member organisations appreciate Institute’s work on gender-based violence and suggest to have also intersectional approach in the area. This would enable to bring in also the realities of transgender people.

Looking at the possible new directions for the Institute’s work, the Social Platform would welcome EIGE to contribute to the European Commission’s High-level group on racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance work with its specific gendered analysis on some of the issues addressed, such as hate crime and hate speech. The European Women’s lobby welcomes EIGE to work on migration (especially violence against refugee women) and cyber violence.

The Social Platform also highly values EIGE’s work on economic benefits of gender equality published earlier this year and suggests to continue in looking at the economic case for gender equality by assessing alternative economic models and their gender equality possible impacts (eg social economy, sharing economy, community based economies, social entreprenurship etc.). This would allow understanding better how current economic models and alternative models affect the situation of women and men.

Attachment 1: TGEU and ILGA Europe proposal

LGBTI people in EIGE´s strategic priorities 2018-2010

9. March 2017

Transgender Europe and ILGA-Europe encourage the European Institute for Gender Equality to adopt an intersectional approach when setting strategic priorities for 2018-2020. It is important to consider the experiences and situations of LGBTI people, particularly when planning activities around measuring progress of gender equality in Europe. When mapping gender-based violence, widespread exposure of LGBTI people to violence caused by rigid perceptions of gender roles, ought to be analysed.

We invite EIGE to engage in a discussion with civil society on the understanding of gender that would be inclusive of different gender identities and expressions.

Introduction

LGBTI people are discriminated and stigmatised because of restraining gender stereotypes, which continue to prevail in our societies. Trans and intersex people are seen as not being “female enough” or “male enough” and their existence in itself, challenges both gender and sex binary categories. The EU LGBT survey showed that respondents whose gender expression does not ‘match’ their sex assigned at birth are twice as likely as those whose gender expression is in line with societal expectations to say that they experienced hate-motivated violence in the year preceding the survey. 12% of all gay men who identify as having a “feminine” gender expression were victims of violence which they think happened partly or entirely because they were perceived to be LGBT, compared with 6% of all gay men with “masculine” gender expression.

Social expectations associated to rigid gender roles are harmful to LGBTI people as they hamper individual choices and restrict people’s potential.The notion of two gender categories, that make up power hierarchies needs to be challenged to achieve real gender equality. Promoting fundamental rights of LGBTI people and ensuring their visibility throughout EIGE´s work will contribute significantly to the fight against gender stereotypes.

In the past, gender equality policies have been contextualised mainly as a women’s issue: a battle fought by women for women. However, gender equality is the responsibility of society as a whole and requires active contributions from all. In a context of growing reactionary opposition, allies should be sought and strives for equality united. Therefore, the new strategic priorities of EIGE should clearly refer to gender equality as a pursuit for equality not only between women and men, but also as equality for LGBTI people.

Legal and societal context

EIGE, as well as the European Commission in whole, operates under a EU legal framework that aims to protect the human rights of LGBTI people and to eliminate gender inequalities.

  1. TheCharter of Fundamental Rights contains a general prohibition of discrimination, including on grounds of sex, hence also gender reassignment, and sexual orientation.[1]
  2. The European Convention on Human Rights art. 14 protects everyone against discrimination on ground of gender identity as clarified by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Identoba and Others v. Georgia. The EU is the Contracting Party of the convention.
  3. Gender identity is referred to in two adopted directives on asylum and both gender identity and gender expression are expressly included in the victim’s rights directive, that defines gender-based violence as violence that is directed against a person because of that person's gender, gender identity or gender expression or that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately.
  4. 14 EU member states have ratified the Council of Europe´s convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Moreover, the European Commission has endorsed the convention by supporting the accession of EU to the convention. The Istanbul convention states that the implementation of the convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.
  5. The Commission’sstrategic engagement for gender equality 2016-2019 prioritises five key areas for action, one of them being dignity, integrity and ending gender-based violence, under which the Commission has engaged itself to continue focused actions to end all forms of gender-based violence.
  6. List of actions by the Commission to advance LGBTI equality foresees activities that aim to give more visibility to trans and intersex issues in the EU and learn how the gender recognition legislation affects transgender people´s position on the labour market.

Furthermore, Europeans feel strongly about promoting LGBT equality according to the 2015 Eurobarometer on discrimination: almost 60 % of EU citizens see discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as widespread and 71 % of respondents support equal rights for LGBT people. As the regulation establishing the European Institute for Gender Equality provides that EIGE must carry out its activities independently in the public interest, sentiments of EU citizens should be one of the considerations when setting priorities for upcoming years.

In such a dynamic emerging context, EIGE needs to provide member states with up-to-date information on legal and social developments in gender equality that is embracing the concerns for equality of LGBTI people. Therefore, we urge EIGE to:

  1. Adopt an intersectional approach, which would address the experiences and situations of LBTI women, women living with disabilities etc., when setting strategic priorities for 2018-2020.
  2. Consider the experiences and situations of LGBTI people, particularly when planning activities around measuring progress of gender equality in Europe, e.g. when further developing the methodology of the Gender Equality Index and tailoring the results according to the needs of different stakeholders.
  3. Study and analyse the widespread exposure of LGBTI people to gender-based violence, and in the work with Member States for the improvement of national data collection, include in the discussions variables such as gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics of a victim, that would reflect the experiences of LGBTI people.
  4. Analyse further the mindset behind trans-, intersex- and homophobia in order to tackle more efficiently prevalent gender stereotypes.
  5. Engage in a discussion with civil society on the understanding of gender being inclusive of different gender identities and expressions and pertaining to social reality, rather than being matter of ideology.

Glossary

Gender expression refers to people's manifestation of their gender identity, and the one that is perceived by others. Typically, people seek to make their gender expression or presentation match their gender identity/identities, irrespective of the sex that they were assigned at birth.

Gender identity refers to each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modifications of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerism (Yogyakarta Principles).

Intersex individuals are born with physical sex characteristics that do not fit medical or social norms for female or male bodies. These variations in sex characteristics may manifest themselves in primary characteristics (such as the inner and outer genitalia, the chromosomal and hormonal structure) and/or secondary characteristics (such as muscle mass, hair distribution and stature).

Sex characteristics refer to the chromosomal, gonadal and anatomical features of a person, which include primary characteristics such as reproductive organs and genitalia and/or chromosomal structures and hormones; and secondary characteristics such as, but not limited to, muscle mass, hair distribution, breasts and/or stature.

Sexual orientation describes an individual’s enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to another person. Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same. For example, transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Trans people are individuals whose gender identity and/or a gender expression differs from the gender they were assigned at birth.

Resources

European Union lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender survey, the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), 2012.

Protection against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics in the EU: Comparative legal analysis (Update 2015), FRA.

Human Rights and Gender Identity: Best Practice Catalogue, Transgender Europe 2016.

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[1] According to 2015 legal analysis by FRA intersex people should, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, benefit from protection against discrimination on the ground of sex under Article 21 of the Charter. See: (09.03.2017).