Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Tax lawyer Typhanie Afschrift died on Saturday after she fell severely at her house. Her health condition remained critical from the day of the accident, which took place on Friday.
Tax lawyer Typhanie Afschrift lost her life on Saturday when she suffered a serious fall at her residence. The hospital doctors assigned her condition as critical after her home accident on Friday. A Trends-Tendances publication director confirmed that she had passed away after working with the publication. Afschrift maintained an influential position in tax law while practising across international territories between Brussels, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong.
Typhanie Afschrift gained an internationally recognised position as a tax lawyer in Belgium while maintaining her standing as an expert in tax laws. Her professional membership in the Luxembourg Bar Association, together with the Geneva Bar Association, Fribourg Bar Association, Madrid Bar Association, Hong Kong Bar Association, Brussels Bar Association and Antwerp Bar Association, allowed her to practice across borders since she spoke multiple languages.
She revealed her gender transition to the public in 2022 by choosing to transition from Thierry to Typhanie. She had been honest about enduring a continuous battle with gender identity because she never felt connected to her birth gender. Afschrift found her true self through extensive therapy and depressive episodes in interviews she did with L’Echo and Paris Match.
What is the broader context of legal professionals and gender transition in Belgium?
Europeans consider Belgium as one of the most advanced countries when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights because it grants access to legal gender recognition. Belgian law enables people to alter their legal gender identity without requiring any medical requirements since 2017. The Institute for the Equality of Women and Men tracked 1,000 legal gender change procedures after Belgium introduced the legislation in 2017.
Although the law remains rigidly traditional in professional life, there is a shortage of data related to transgender professionals who work in the field. The Belgian diversity group Diversity revealed through its 2022 report that 95% of law firms had no published workplace gender transition policies.
The position of Typhanie Afschrift as a tax lawyer served as an uncommon presence in Belgium’s legal field due to its low female lawyer population of 47%, according to the Belgian Bar Association. Statistical records fail to document the representation of transgender individuals in important legal positions.
Workplace discrimination affects transgender individuals across Belgium since the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights documented that 35% of transgender individuals had employment-related discrimination in 2020. The public transition of Afschrift in 2022 made these systematic problems more visible, even as they continue to exist.
Belgium experiences approximately 2,500 annual unintentional fatal fall deaths among adults aged above 60, according to the National Health Institute Sciensano. Public information does not explicitly reveal the incidence of falls among legal professionals. The legal profession in Belgium operates without standard occupational safety assessments, according to the Afschrift case study.
