"Among countries that expressly forbid expression of transgender identities, at least two, Brunei and Oman, have national laws that criminalize “posing as” or “imitating” a person of a different sex. Saudi Arabia has no codified law, but police routinely arrest people based on their gender expression. Malaysia also criminalizes “posing as” a different sex, not in its federal criminal code but in the Sharia codes of each of its states and its federal territory. Nigeria criminalizes transgender and gender nonconforming people in its northern states under Sharia. In South Sudan, such laws only apply to men who “dress as women” and in Malawi, men who wear their hair long. Tonga prohibits any “male person” from presenting as a female while “soliciting for an immoral purpose, in a public place with intent to deceive any other person as to his true sex.” In the United Arab Emirates, laws prohibit men “posing as” women in order to enter women-only spaces. The UAE has used this law to prosecute gay and transgender people even in mixed-gender spaces. Other countries with similar laws on “women-only” spaces have not done so, to our knowledge, and are not included in these maps."
Transgender

January 1, 1970

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