Only a minority of countries, mostly in Europe and South America, give full legal equality to transgender people
Unfortunately, in 2024, only 68 countries around the world allow people to officially change their gender – on their birth certificate, passport, driving license, marriage certificate (if any), degrees, membership certificates to professional organizations, personal records at work, medical records, tax and insurance records, etc. This is the data provided by Equaldex, an online resource for LGBTQ+ rights worldwide.
The ability to officially change one's legal gender can affect multiple practical aspects of transgender people's lives, from their ability to get married or adopt children with a partner of the opposite gender to their access to gender-specific services, care and opportunities (e.g., applying for a women's scholarship, being able to stay in the men's/women's ward at the hospital).
Half of these 68 countries have a restriction for changing one's legal gender: they require an official medical diagnosis and/or surgery. Access to diagnosis and surgery can be bureaucratically complicated as well as expensive, so it is a barrier to many transgender people in vulnerable positions (e.g., working-class trans people, newly-arrived trans expats who just spent most of their savings on relocating and cannot afford another major expense soon).
The 34 countries with no diagnosis/surgery restrictions for gender change are Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Mozambique, Botswana, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece, Israel, Taiwan.
Some of the aforementioned countries have a very culture-specific definition of transgender identity that does not fully overlap with how it is understood elsewhere. In Bangladesh, for one, the legally recognized transgender identity since 2013 is “hijra,” a distinctly South Asia third gender for people who are neither men nor women. It remains unclear how much an expat transwoman or transman would be protected under the category of hijras.
The following countries require a medical diagnosis to be able to legally change one's gender: South Africa, Peru, the UK, Sweden, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belarus, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, Italy. The following countries require a gender-change surgery: Panama, Cuba, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Japan, China, India, Mongolia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Romania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Latvia.
The US and Australia are two unusual cases – their different states or territories have different laws. The more liberal states on the East and West Coast of the US tend to have good laws for transgender people as well as a fairly safe environment, but the vast majority of Southern and Midwestern laws have been rolling out transphobic laws in the past few years. For trans expats, moving to the US for a new job requires considering whether this job is in a safe state like California, New York, or Massachusetts – as compared to Texas, North Carolina, or Wisconsin.
The situation is better in Australia, where transgender people are protected from discrimination and violence by federal laws. However, the exact laws concerning gender change are in the hands of territories. There are no diagnosis or surgery requirements in Victoria, Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania. In New South Wales, trans people need to undergo surgery to change their gender, and in Western Australia, they need a medical diagnosis.
Destinations with dangerous laws or environments for trans expats
Sadly, there are countries where not only laws don't recognize gender changes, but they also criminalize trans people under laws against “cross-dressing.” These countries are Brunei, Gambia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malawi, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, South Sudan, Tonga and the UAE.
The UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Malaysia and Indonesia are popular countries with expats for various reasons, such as affordability and good quality of life in Malaysia or zero income tax and cutting-edge technology in the UAE. However, they might be unsafe destinations for queer, especially trans, expats.
In the UAE, it's specifically transwomen who are the most vulnerable because cross-dressing laws criminalize people which the state deems to be “biologically male” dressing up in women's clothing. There have been reports of trans travelers being detained for hours at the airport in Dubai, being grilled with invasive questions about their sex lives by immigration officials and even getting deported. Vice News reported about a Thai trans model who went through this ordeal despite being an official invitee to the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. Similarly, Climate Home News reports that trans and non-binary climate campaigners avoided the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai because they feared deportation.
The Rainbow Network of the University of Birmingham gives some travel tips for trans tourists and expats in the UAE. This advice can be extended to other destinations which are unsafe for transgender expats. First, they advise trans people who already transitioned back home against traveling/moving to these places if they don't fully physically “pass for” the gender on their passport, i.e., if they don't fully pass as cisgender. They also ask them to be careful with healthcare services that might reveal their trans identity to the authorities. For instance, it might be best to consult a private expat doctor in the country rather than go to a state-run hospital. They can also go to more liberal nearby countries for some types of healthcare.
Of course, they also recommend not showing any publicly visible sign of support for LGBTQ+ rights. This includes wearing LGBTQ+ logos on clothes, sporting LGBTQ+ pins/keychains/lanyards, signing any emails with pronouns, and sharing content about trans rights on social media during their stay in the country. They recommend making one's social media profiles and presence as private as possible during the stay. The network also strongly advises trans expats in queer relationships not to give their partner's name as “next of kin” to emergency services. Instead, give the name of a straight, cisgender family member like a parent or sibling. Of course, having to walk on eggshells all the time like this is stressful, and despite all precautions, the risk of getting detained, arrested or deported still exists.
In other parts of the world, legal protection does not fully guarantee the lack of discrimination or violence in everyday life. For example, across Latin America, the rate of violence and homicide against trans people is high despite strong laws. Brazil, where changing one's gender is entirely legal, has the highest murder rate of transgender people in the world. According to the Trans Murder Monitoring Report of the Transgender Europe (TGEU) network, there have been over 4,500 registered murders of trans people in Brazil between 2008-2023, including 100 in 2023.
The worst countries for the risk of murder for trans people are, from the highest to least high homicide rates, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, the US, India, Pakistan, Venezuela, Argentina, the Philippines, Ecuador, and Peru.
Ideally, the safest destinations for trans expats would be those that both have strong laws and a low violence rate. The specialized travel journalism website Asher & Lyric, dedicated to safety while traveling, compiled a list of the safest countries for trans tourists and expats. Their ranking considers both legal protection on paper and actual rates of discrimination or violence. The destinations they list as the safest in 2023 are, from the safest first, Malta, Portugal, Canada, Sweden, Bolivia, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Switzerland, France, Spain, and the UK. Many of these countries have been welcoming more expats in recent years. Malta, for one, is attracting expats who work in financial services. Canada's current immigration goal is 500,000 new skilled expats in 2025 and 2026.
In some cases, the relationship between the law and reality can be inverse: a destination can be fairly safe for trans expats even in the absence of legal recognition on paper. This is the case in Thailand. As reported by the NGO Stonewall UK, there informally exists a flourishing scene for trans people (including “ladyboys,” young transwomen) in Thailand, and many expats travel there for affordable gender-affirming surgery in private clinics. Despite this, officially changing one's gender on one's documents is still illegal under Thai law, and transphobic discrimination still happens in formal settings like white-collar workplaces.
How trans expats have navigated various restrictions
How have transgender expats dealt with restrictions and risks concerning their gender identity while living abroad, and what useful tips have allies given them from their observations while living abroad?
Thankfully, not every new expatriation means increased risk. Plus, as many trans expats choose safer destinations in the first place, they are sometimes actually moving to a place where they don't have to be overly careful about how to protect themselves. This is the case of an American expat from a Republican state with transphobic laws who was trying to relocate to Sweden partly because he has a transgender child.
On the forum of Expat.com, one expat in Indonesia says that even if the country criminalizes trans identities, tourists and expats often have a degree of privilege that makes them unlikely to be exposed to as much discrimination or violence as local trans people. A trans expat who already legally transitioned back home is still in a safer position than a transgender Indonesian. He advises to just avoid showing your identity too openly, like by avoiding hosting LGBTQ+ events.
On the China forum of Expat.com, one Welsh teacher asked whether her trans identity would affect her ability to get a job in China. Chinese citizens and expats in China have given her advice concerning administrative loopholes and finding an accommodating workplace. As there is no third option on forms for expat workers, she was recommended to tick both the “male” and “female” boxes and then add an explanatory note that she is a transwoman. Trans expats can create or use administrative loopholes like this when official papers in a foreign country do not cater to gender diversity.
She was also advised to be honest with her prospective employer, who would likely be a headmaster/headmistress or director of an institute, instead of hiding her identity. She was comforted that people in many parts of China are tolerant of diverse gender identities and that she'd be unlikely to face a lot of discrimination. However, it was still recommended to her to apply to teach teenagers or adults rather than young children because some parents might still have irrational transphobic fears about gender non-conforming people teaching their children.
Some of the challenges faced by trans expats don't concern discrimination per se but rather the difficulty of finding a queer community to feel at home with. In an interview with Expat Magazine, one young trans Indian expat who moved to the UK to study said it was challenging at first to bond with the trans community in London – because it was a culture-specific community, with slang and references that are not necessarily used in queer communities in India. They said that relocating with their partner helped make them feel less alone when they initially struggled to fully bond with the local trans community.
Useful links:
Asher & Lyric, “203 Best (& Worst) Countries for Trans Rights in 2023”
Climate Home News, “Fearing repression in Dubai, non-binary people stay away from Cop28”
Dhaka Tribune Article about transgender laws in Bangladesh (author: Ishtiaque Ahmed Khan)
Expat Magazine interview of a trans Indian expat in the UK
Equaldex, “Right to change legal gender”
Movement Advancement Project, “Mapping Transgender Equality in the United States”
TGEU's Trans Monitoring Report (map)
Them, “Report: It's Still Illegal to Be Transgender in These 14 Countries” (author: Serena Sonoma)
University of Birmingham Rainbow Network, “Top Tips for Travelling to Dubai”
