Transgender rights movement

The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. It is part of the broader LGBTQ rights movements.

Where they exist, legally enshrined anti-discrimination protections, and protections against targeted hate crimes, have been described as significant successes of the transgender rights movement. Another key goal of transgender activism is to allow changes to identification documents to recognize a person's current gender identity without the need for gender-affirming surgery or any medical requirements, which is known as gender self-identification. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) argues that legal gender recognition should be provided by states, in part because not doing so "hinders access to rights and services (e.g. education, employment, bathrooms) and puts trans people at risk of violence (e.g. when presenting documents that don't match their appearance)." The European Court of Justice ruled that states should legally recognize a person's gender without invasive or excessive requirements, and the Supreme Court of Japan ruled that forced sterilization cannot be required.

Human rights experts argue that transgender rights can be derived from universal human rights. The group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights successfully argued that transgender people have the right to life under the American Convention on Human Rights. The right to security of person has been applied to transgender rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Other universal rights applied to transgender rights have included freedom of expression via the Yogyakarta Principles, freedom from discrimination under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the right to dignity.