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Sexuality, gender groups concerned about legislature

Civic groups concerned about gender and sexuality rights said yesterday that tough legislative battles may lie ahead as they were worried that the new legislature may be "too conservative."

"We're really concerned about what will happen to legislative proposals relevant to minority rights now that a new legislature with a single party holding an absolute majority was elected," Wang Ping (王蘋), secretary-general of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association in Taiwan, told a news conference.

"Especially when some law-makers with records of oppressing gender and sex minorities succeeded in their re-election bids," she said.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has secured more than two thirds of the 113 seats in the new legislature.

KMT lawmakers include Yang Li-huan (楊麗環), who proposed that there should be a legal "thinking period" before an abortion, Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) who is opposed to gay marriage and Diane Lee (李慶安) who insisted that books with adult content should not be in public libraries when she was serving as a Taipei City councilor, Wang said.

"A lot of political commentators are worried that the new single-party majority legislature may sell out Taiwan -- but we are certain that minority rights will be sold out before everything else," said Josephine Ho (何春蕤), a sexuality studies professor at National Central University.

The concerns come from a list of top ten gender and sexuality rights news that was released by the groups yesterday. Seven of the news items on the list are related to legislation.

In one of the news items, Yang proposed last year that at least four hours of chastity education should be provided to junior and senior high school students each academic year.

"Though the legislative initiative was not passed, I'm sure members in the new legislature will propose it again," Wang said.

In another incident, religious groups were trying to pressure the legislature to abandon a proposed amendment to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Although the amendment was eventually adopted, Ho said that such instances showed that "the new KMT-controlled legislature will be our main battleground."

While the situation may seem hopeless, Kenneth Chiu (邱晃泉), chairman of Deng Liberty Foundation, said non-governmental organizations (NGO) should take a more active role.

"We can, for example, push for a system in which NGOs can actively seek to speak at legislative meetings when relevant bills are being reviewed," he said.
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