What Rights… Are Trans People Demanding?!
“What rights are you still missing?!” Let us show you!
Legal recognition, accessible healthcare, privacy, safety and protection for our families. Such terrifying demands from the trans lobby!
Here are our demands and the changes we are fighting for in Ukraine.
Contents
Updating the transition protocol
A cornerstone of the work of all trans NGOs — non-governmental organisations — is the legal regulation of transition. And that goes for us too!!! Let us be honest: the current unified clinical protocol for transition, “Gender Dysphoria”, which has been in force since 2016, is already very outdated. It provoked outrage and criticism from LGBTIQ civil society organisations as far back as 10 years ago.
Today, beyond the obvious shortcomings of the medical transition protocol, many trans people have to face numerous instances of corruption at every stage of medical transition: from “diagnosis” to obtaining a certificate “of change (correction) of sex”.
The current Unified Clinical Protocol for Medical Care, “Gender Dysphoria”, was developed on the basis of WPATH 7 and ICD-10. Today, WPATH 8 and ICD-11 are in use. WPATH refers to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and its Standards of Care; ICD is the International Classification of Diseases.
The current protocol also contains numerous internal terminological inaccuracies.
Legal recognition
For trans people, changing documents is still a quest in its own right… Other trans people have no way of obtaining legal recognition at all.
Non-binary and intersex people are forced either to keep their existing gender marker or to change it to the opposite one. There is currently no option for an “X” gender marker, or a similar designation, in Ukraine’s legal framework!
Confidentiality in identity documents
The codes contained in identity documents — specifically the RNOKPP, the taxpayer registration number, also known in Ukraine as the “IPN”, and the UNZR, the unique record number in the Unified State Demographic Register — contain encoded information about the sex assigned at birth.
So even though it is possible to change a gender marker in Ukraine, a trans person risks being outed when their documents are checked: having their trans status disclosed without their consent.
The right to safety
Adopting Bill No. 13597, which provides for liability for discrimination and public incitement to violence motivated by intolerance, will make it possible to protect trans people, among others.
This means establishing guarantees in criminal legislation, providing appropriate training for law enforcement officers and protecting survivors from further trauma when they seek help.
When someone is attacked because of their gender identity, the hate motive must be properly established and taken into account during the investigation and sentencing: adopting Bill No. 13597 will make this possible.
Injectable estradiol
Ensuring legal access through pharmacies to quality injectable estradiol, with manufacturing oversight and a stable supply, will improve the health of many transgender and intersex people receiving feminising hormone therapy: tablets, patches and gels do not meet everyone’s individual needs.
Injectable estradiol, meanwhile, could be a safe and inexpensive alternative if legalised, and will displace the grey market.
The right to marry
Ukraine’s proposed new Civil Code, Bill No. 15150, proposes enshrining the Russian rule of declaring a marriage involving someone who has “changed sex” invalid.
In Articles 1495, 1488 and 1500 of the draft Civil Code of Ukraine, transition is treated as immoral (Article 1488), and a marriage involving someone who has “changed sex” would be considered invalid (Article 1495, paragraph 4) from the date of the “registration of a change of sex” (Article 1500). The draft does not clarify what exactly constitutes the “registration of a change of sex”: obtaining a new passport or obtaining a medical certificate.
At the time the original post was published — October 2026 — the draft was being prepared for a second reading. And it will depend on us whether this and other Bolshevik ideas embedded in the draft Civil Code become part of the law.
Don’t put the cardboard away
Health, family, safety and recognition — these are the real demands of the trans community. These demands make sense to everyone, regardless of gender identity, political beliefs or citizenship.
Yet decisions about trans people’s lives are made in offices and in parliament by those whose love no one will declare invalid, whose health and bodily integrity are protected, and whose gender identity is not questioned.
That is why we should pay attention to who is proposing what, ask questions and support those who defend our rights. Don’t put the cardboard for your protest placards away.
With love, your NGO for equal rights.
Sources
- Emancipation NGO’s original Instagram post: all slides and the caption, 13 October 2026.
- State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine: “Gender Dysphoria”.
- WPATH: Standards of Care, Version 8.
- WHO: transgender health in ICD-11.
- Bill No. 13597.
- Ukraine’s draft Civil Code, Bill No. 15150.
With support from
The post was created with the support of the Swedish Federation for LGBTQI Rights (RFSL) as part of the “Resilient Movements, Stronger Communities” programme.