GIRES

Melverley
The Warren
Ashtead
Surrey
KT21 2SP

Tel: 01372 801554
Fax: 01372 272297
Web: www.gires.org.uk

The Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) was established in 1997 to inform a wide public of the issues surrounding gender identity and transsexualism. Its aim is to improve the circumstances in which transgender people live by informing and educating all those who can support them, including family members, politicians, policy makers, commissioners and providers of healthcare, the police and other agencies within the criminal justice system, teachers, employers, and representatives of the media. The charity's education programmes and its contributions to policy development are soundly based on research. It makes an annual award to the authors of the best published research. GIRES also:

• Operates a website, that contains information prepared specifically for transgender people and the different categories of people who are best able to support them.
• Distributes leaflets and other literature.
• Supports individual transgender people, for instance by intervening on their behalf with medical authorities and employers.
• Publishes guidelines on good medical practice.
• Bases its training programmes and literature on the actual experiences of transgender people.
• Provides information to individual transgender people, family members, professionals and media personnel who contact the charity via telephone, e-mail and surface mail.
• Assists major agencies to develop policies that support transgender people including the Department of Health, the Home Office, the Crown Protection Service, the National Policing Improvement Agency, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, The Ministry of Justice, the Government Equalities Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The significant projects undertaken by GIRES include:

• Developing website material and literature for the Department of Health, the Home Office and the National Policing Improvement Agency. For example, on medical care and transphobic bullying in schools.
• Preparing standards of care for the medical treatment of adults in the UK who experience atypical gender identity development and transsexualism.
• Challenging the current British medical approach to treating transgender adolescents, which does not match that available in leading overseas medical centres.
• Assisting the police at national and local level with policy development and training on transgender issues.
• Training professionals in many fields on gender identity and transgender issues.
• Examining the biological factors involved in the development of atypical gender identity.
• Contributing articles for publication in journals whose readers are likely to be in a position to help transgender people.