Ahead of Egypt’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) cycle, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) and Cairo 52 Legal Research Institute issued a UPR Advocacy Fact Sheet that highlights the critical challenges faced by transgender and intersex individuals in accessing health services in Egypt.
The fact sheet summarizes some of the key points in the joint alternate report made by the organizations to the UPR Working Group. It highlights the discriminatory laws, policies, and practices against transgender and intersex individuals in Egypt. It also emphasizes the lack of adequate training for healthcare providers and the absence of specialized healthcare facilities that can address their health needs, forcing this group to seek dangerous alternatives to necessary medical treatments.
The fact sheet also summarizes the recommendations suggested in the joint alternate report and calls on states participating in the UPR process to make the following recommendations, among others, during Egypt’s review:
- Respect, protect, and fulfill the rights to the health of transgender and intersex individuals without discrimination.
- Repeal provisions prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care.
- Ensure the protection of transgender and intersex individuals against medical malpractice, harassment, and discrimination.
- Respect the right of intersex people to access gender-affirming healthcare without restrictions and based only on scientific medical review, and ensure that intersex infants are not subjected to unnecessary gender assignment surgeries when the binary sex characteristics are not precise.
The UPR is a mechanism of the United Nations created to examine the human rights record of all UN member states; Egypt’s fourth UPR cycle is set to take place in January 2025.