LGBTQ-PHOBIA - STATUS REPORT - IN ISRAEL #9

A case we were exposed to this year and treated relating to the HMO was the story of M. and her partner, from the central region, who are raising their children together. M. wanted to receive medical information about her children but had to provide legal documents stating that she was indeed registered as the children’s mother, even though her marital status was updated on her identity card. The discrimination came in a variety of forms: long waits for gender reassignment surgery; discrimination in the blood donation of gay and transgender people; inappropriate application language; HMO forms formulated only for a family consisted of a mother and a father, and deleted an option for a LGBTQ family; prevention of obtaining medical information about non-biological children and married couples of the same sex; prevention of receiving treatment due to a gender adjustment procedure; doctors who advise not to have sex between men as well as therapists who perform conversion therapies. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg, while we fully understand and know that there are many more cases that remain hidden and even cases that can sometimes be life-threatening. Community organizations have approached the Ministry of Health by demanding appropriate action pertaining to the entire LGBTQ community: 1. Allocation of hours to operating rooms as well as training surgeons for gender surgery. 2. Lifting the ban on private genital surgery in Israel. 3. Shortening the waiting period for gender reassignment surgeries. 4. Allocating resources for stigma-breaking advocacy activities for people living with HIV, in order to provide information to professionals working with the LGBTQ community as well as the general population. 5. Addressing the issue of surrogacy for female couples and enabling egg donation between spouses. An additional step was cooperating with the Ministry of Health’s Mental Health Division, which in 2021, introduced a procedure that recognizes that transgenderism is not a mental disorder and that members of the trans community must be adequately addressed. As a result, a treatment protocol is recorded with procedures that deal with the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, by language, by defined services, by the manner of documenting the medical file and more. Community coping

LGBTQ Phobia in the Family Key arenas for 2021

"I am asking for help for a minority member, a 20-year-old Israeli citizen. He was evicted using physical violence from his home this evening by his family and has nowhere to stay. Please help him." / C. from Jerusalem.

The highest percentage of people reporting incidents comes from those who define themselves as gay – cisgender men and transgender alike. About a quarter of the incidents within the family were directed at the entire community. This is because we consider expressions and utterances of LGBTQ discrimination in general to be directed at the whole community (for example, the "Family = Mother and Father" campaign of the "Hazon" religious movement). Segmentation according to sexual orientation

Homosexual 29%

Non-Binary/Doesn’t define themselves 13%

General community 26%

sexual orientation Segmentation

Non-Romantic /ASexual 2%

Hetrosexual 8%

Bi/Pan/Poli 10%

Lesbian12%