VietNamNet Bridge – Without legal protection, transgender people are unable to find jobs and have to do work that is looked down on, which make others despise them even more.

Homosexuals, bi-sexuals and transgenders have remained largely unprotected by laws and regulations.     A transgender doing circus tricks at a funeral.

The Government’s Decree 88, issued in 2008, bans people with no "gender problems" from changing gender. If they want to re-define their registered gender, they must have several documents from hospitals, with the authority of the Ministry of Health. Then they must seek approval from local authorities to complete the procedure.

But in fact, the Health Ministry has only given the gender reassignment testing rights to three hospitals in early 2013. “Re-defining” one's sex legally means officially to correct a mistake in the definition of one's gender. But “transgender” is understood as transforming from one gender to another, so the local authorities often refuse to recognise the these cases. As a result, homosexuals, bi-sexuals and transgenders have remained largely unprotected by laws and regulations.

According to an online survey conducted by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE), which included 223 participants who have changed from male to female across Vietnam, only 89 people said they had found jobs. About 21% of them said they lost their jobs and 8.5% do not have stable jobs.

Dr. Pham Quynh Phuong from the ISEE said transgender people are dealing with a vicious circle. They often give up on education early because they are despised. This, Phuong said, causes problems for them when they want to find work but have no university and in some cases even a high school diploma. These people often must resort to doing the least prestigious jobs such as funeral singers or prostitutes. Those jobs only lower their positions in other people's eyes.

"Around 32% don't have sufficient education to find good jobs because they dropped out early, and 35% were dismissed because they came out." Phuong said.

Even when they are not dismissed, they still have to endure unequal treatment, such as lower wages. "When I tried to apply at a convenience store, they outright told me that they didn't want a fag working there," one transgender person said.

Another transgender in HCM City said that she faced many difficulties when trying to find a job because she dropped out of school early and still has a male name. Now she sings at funerals for income.

Currently, the transgender community remains disadvantaged, in part because the government does not have clear and adequate policies or regulations for their status. "We need to add them into our preferential policies rules," Phuong said.

Source: DTriNews