A new draft on gender reassignment regulations came under heavy fire over the past week as transgender rights advocates accused the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) of backpedaling on reforms.
On Friday, a meeting on the issue organized by the ministry left the draft undecided, with representatives from transgender groups, religious groups and government agencies unable to reach a consensus on the regulations.
The draft came as a serious setback for transgender activists, following what was described as a landmark victory last month, when the legislature demanded that the ministry eliminate an “inhumane” administrative order which requires the surgical removal of gender-specific organs before gender reassignment.
Although the ministry complied with demands to abolish the surgical requirement — which has long been criticized of leading many transgender people to undergo cheap, unsafe surgeries — its new draft provoked an equal amount of resistance.
The new proposals would bar married applicants or those with children from applying for gender reassignment, as well as allowing gender reassignment only once in an applicant’s lifetime.
The draft also retained the requirement for applicants to undergo two psychiatric assessments, along with an additional evaluation by a special committee.
Transgender activists and their supporters said the draft would impose strict obstacles on many people who wish to legally change their registered gender, adding that Minister of the Interior Chen Wei-zen (陳威仁) failed to follow through on his agreement with legislators.
Transgender Punk Activist, a transgender rights advocacy group, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that the proposed regulations infringed on the rights of transgender people.
“Some transgender people entered marriage arrangements in the gender they were born with and had children, but in mid-life realized that they could not bear to live lives in which they were unable to be themselves,” the group said.
Transgender and Transsexual People Care Association secretary-general Zoe Ye (葉若瑛) — who was born a male but identifies as a transgender woman — described the new draft regulations as “obviously against human rights in many aspects,” adding that the ministry’s claims to reform were clearly just “a show.”
On Dec. 25 last year, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and long-time political activist Shih Ming-te (施明德) cited an agreement with the ministry that new regulations on gender reassignment would be finalized within one month.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS