This report highlights the persistent exclusion of transwomen and men from disaster risk reduction and response. This paper analyses the issues that often face transgender individuals such as denial of food and water, abuse, gender based violence, corrective rape, loss of safe spaces and intensive policies. There is a particular focus on the importance of space in trans lives and the need for space to play a role in disaster risk reduction. This paper uses surveys to highlight the experiences of transgender men and women in Australia and New Zealand after the Christchurch earthquake and the Queensland floods. Findings include issues such as marginality, displacement, interpersonal networks and issues with disaster response.
This paper calls for the training of personnel to adequately meet the medical and health needs of trans women and trans men, and emphasises the importance of moving beyond heteronormative assumptions of family and households in disaster risk reduction planning.
