(Conference Draft)
Introduction
In every region of the world, trans, intersex, and gender-variant people face risks for their lives as their inherent dignity, personal safety, physical integrity, and mental well-being are compromised by the violence committed against them in their societies. The violence trans, intersex, and gender-variant people face comes in different forms such as sexual assault and abuse, domestic violence, and state-sponsored violence.
Colonial laws, religious persuasions, cultural beliefs and the heteronormative gender binary system, i.e., the belief that one’s gender identity and expression should conform to one’s sex assignment at birth, have all been used to justify, glorify, and sanctify this violence, thereby laying a strong foundation for the denial of the human rights of trans, intersex, and gender-variant people.
Regionally, activists working for the protection and advancement of the human rights of trans, intersex, and gender-variant people have been documented cases of violence committed against their communities[1]. However due to research limitations and the absence of systematic reporting and monitoring systems in almost all countries worldwide, the figures of these reports show only a glimpse of the reality, the tip of the iceberg of the breadth and scale of the violence against trans, intersex, and gender-variant people.
