Montenegro to Improve Transgender Rights

Since its founding in December 2010, the LGBT Forum Progress has been dedicated to developing and improving the livelihoods of members of the trans community and expanding transgender rights in Montenegro.

 

The group began an advocacy campaign in 2011 for changes to national health services, which, in 2012, led to Montenegro’s adoption of legal provisions to ensure that 80% of the costs involved in the process of gender confirmation would be covered in the state budget.

 

The remarkable degree of communication and cooperation that the group established with the Minister of Health and related health authorities across the country now places Montenegro at the forefront of transgender rights in a regional context.

 

With support from the British Embassy in Podgorica, the LGBT Forum Progress has worked towards, and achieved, vast improvements in the capacity of doctors and medical staff to appropriately interact with transgender patients. The group has also invested considerable time and energy into encouraging the development of a transgender civil society, a group which currently only has seven open and active members.

 

The protocol on gender confirmation in Montenegro is in the final stages of development within the Ministry of Health. Input relevant experts and European Transgender Associations is currently being sought, collected and reviewed.

 

Three poor transgender people are receiving financial aid, through the "LGBT Solidarity" fund, a collaborative initiative by members of the Montenegrin LGBT community.

 

Transgender people, through established services offered by the LGBT Forum Progress, are provided the services of legal and psychological counseling, and access to a shelter, which currently hosts four transgender people from anywhere between 15 days and 3 months.

 

The trans community is represented in the directive committee of the LGBT Forum Progress with a reserved place in this body of the organization.

 

The LGBT Forum Progress will tomorrow showcase the first experiences of transgender people towards their own legal recognition and access to personal documents as transgender citizens.

 

Edited by: Jayson McNamara