"When Tomas suggested taking part in this video, I had only one thought in my mind – I have to, despite my emotional state, and despite my complete unwillingness to talk about those very private life episodes," says Jūratė on her social media account, with friends congratulating her for her courage.
No treatment available
Jūratė is one of the three people who appeared on the first-ever public video in Lithuania on trans-community life experiences. Another activist is 18-year-old Oskaras, who shares his life story and the feelings he had to deal with not knowing what was happening to him.
"Every day I had this feeling that something was wrong, but then I knew nothing of transgender people. I thought I was abnormal. I cried for days, and suffered anxiety, because I didn’t even know what to search for in Google,” remembers Oskaras, who lives in a small town with his grandmother. He tells how they went together to the hospital, where he found out his diagnosis, but no treatment was offered.
“We merely seek a gender-reassignment law and to receive treatment,” he explains of the decision to go public in the country, where 60 percent of transgender people claim they have experienced physical or sexual violence and harassment at some point over the last five years.
Broad campaign
The social video is part of a broader social campaign "#TRANS_LT" launched by national LGBT organization Lithuanian Gay League (LGL). Through an online petition, the campaigners target Lithuanian law and policy makers, urging them to develop comprehensive solutions and create "quick, transparent and accessible gender reassignment procedures in Lithuania."
Already in 2007, with its judgment in L v Lithuania, the European Court of Human Rights obliged Lithuanian authorities to enact national legislation regulating medical gender reassignment. The judgment still hasn’t been implemented, and Lithuania remains the only state in the Council of Europe without de factoorde jure gender reassignment procedures.
Gender identity recognition
“The current laws require the person to undergo full gender reassignment to get their ID documents changed, and there is no way of receiving treatment and surgery in Lithuania,” says Natalija Bitiukova of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute.
"People have to undergo treatment abroad and then apply in court in Lithuania to have their documents changed – the registry would not do that without the court order. Such unnecessary, unreasonable restrictions are utterly unfair and inhumane."
The campaigners say that not every transgender person even wants the surgery or treatment – some merely wish to change their IDs and have their chosen gender legally recognized.
The petitioners want "the possibility of changing one’s identity documents without the compulsory gender reassignment surgery, thus abolishing the requirement of forced medical treatment."
Sign the petition
According to LGL, seventeen European countries – including Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark – already provide for such possibility.
"There are three million inhabitants in Lithuania, and if we reached at least one hundred of them, it was worth it," says Oskaras in his captivating interview with the most popular online news outlet.
Support Jūratė, Oskaras, Ženia and others – sign the petition to Lithuanian authorities.
Watch the full video in English.
