Serbia

Organization(s)
Gayten-LGBT
Social situation
Trans people are one of the most marginalized and discriminated social groups in Serbia. They face numerous obstacles in attempts to live a dignified life, mainly caused by the lack of adequate trans-affirming legislation and procedures, and high level of stigma and violence against any gender non-conforming behaviours and expressions. There is still no legislation protecting trans children and youth in schools, despite increasing problem with school violence in general; it is quite difficult to find a job without proper documents and in a country that already has high poverty rate.
When it comes to trans specific healthcare, Belgrade medical team has been established three decades ago. However, up until recently, it has strictly followed the outdated guidelines for triad therapy, based on the psychiatric gate-keeping, monopoly of hormone treatment and no option for partial surgerical interventions. In the past year, we have documented positive changes in trans-specific healthcare, including issuing of the referal letters for upper surgery, new endocrinologists joining the team and less gatekeeping on behalf of psychiatrists. Since 2012, 65% of surgical interventions are covered by the Public fond for health insurance for trans people with public health insurance; however, there are still issues of one third of costs of surgical interventions (on average two to four average salaries in Serbia), high prices and shortages in hormones, centralization of trans-specific health care (team is based in Belgrade) etc.
Legal situation
When it comes to legal gender recognition, for many years trans people in Serbia could have changed their documents based on medical certificate of "sex change". This unofficial and unregulated procedure required sterilization and genital surgery and numerous cases of misuse were documented.
In June 2018 Serbian Government adopted the Law on alterations and additions to the Law on registry books, including the Article 45b regulating for the first time legal gender recognition, requiring a medical certificate of ‘’sex change’’. In December 2018, Ordinance on the manner of issuing and the health care institution confirmation form regarding the person‘s change of sex was adopted, determining requirements for legal gender recognition. According to this Ordinance, a person must submit either a psychiatric report after a year long monitoring and an endocrinologist’s report after administered hormone treatment, or a report from the surgeon, in order to change their documents.
Since November 2013 Gayten-LGBT has been advocating for adoption of the Model law on gender identity. In January 2019 a revised version of the model law will be presented, based fully on self-determination.
Anti-trans violence
Serbia is a country where gender non-conforming expressions, behaviours and identities are not accepted and people who are perceived as transgressing traditional gender roles often face rejection, discrimination and different forms of violence. This may happen at any point during life cycle and in all areas of life: in childhood and youth, adult age and in elderly; in family of origin, during process of education, at work, in partners relations, in public space etc. Rate of reported violent incidents is still very low and media coverage of certain cases is still sensationalistic, despite media guidelines Gayten has developed several years ago. Anti-discrimination law, as well as some other laws, forbid discrimination and violence based on sex, gender and/or gender identity, and institute of hate crime has been introduced in the Criminal code, however, implementation of these regulations, as well as providing support to hate crime survivors, is still quite problematic.

37 Cases

Gayten_SER_34

Date of incident
May 16, 2017
Type of incident
  • Assault
  • Threats and/or psychological violence
Type of perpetrator
  • Private individual
Type of location of incident
  • Public space
Country
Serbia
Person

Gayten_SER_34

Date of incident
May 16, 2017
Type of incident
  • Assault
  • Threats and/or psychological violence
Type of perpetrator
  • Private individual
Type of location of incident
  • Public space
Country
Serbia
Person

Gayten_SER_35

Date of incident
Nov 1, 2017
Type of incident
  • Discriminatory incidents
Type of perpetrator
  • Doctor
  • Public officials
Type of location of incident
  • Court
Country
Serbia
Person