Pride Month has officially begun in Taipei, with weeks of activities and events that are to culminate in Asia’s largest annual Pride parade on Oct. 26.
Every October offers a chance to celebrate Taiwan’s commendable progress in LGBTQ+ rights and for the community to express its joy. However, it is also an opportunity to take stock of areas that still need improvement and remember that the road to equality is a long one, arduously paved by the activists who strive year-round to earn Taiwan its reputation as the most LGBT-friendly place in Asia.
This year saw wins and losses in the fight to allow transgender people to change their official gender. In May, a trans man for the first time won the right to change his designation without undergoing gender confirmation surgery after the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled in his favor. It followed a similar ruling in 2021 that gave a trans woman the right to change her legal gender without surgery.
However, another ruling by the same court in August rejected a bid by a trans woman to change her legal gender without an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria, although it also ordered her household registration office to review the application again. Instead of a medical diagnosis, the plaintiff had submitted “social evidence,” including letters and photographs to prove she was living as a woman. While not unexpected, it shows that the courts still consider gender to be a medical issue framed as a type of “dysphoria,” even if it no longer mandates surgical intervention, thereby stigmatizing diverse gender expression as an illness.
Cross-strait couples also had reason for celebration last month, when the Ministry of the Interior and Mainland Affairs Council announced that they can register their marriages in Taiwan. The law passed in 2019 legalizing same-sex marriage let cross-national couples fall through the cracks, and due to the already complicated nature of cross-strait relations, Taiwanese-Chinese couples have continued to be left out. However, after last month’s decision, these couples can submit a marriage certificate from one of the 35 countries that recognize same-sex marriage and, after submitting their documents and sitting for an interview, register their marriage in Taiwan.
The issues of surrogacy and assisted reproduction have also taken center stage this year, when the Ministry of Health and Welfare in May released draft amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法). The long-overdue changes seek to provide access to assisted reproduction care for single women and lesbian couples, who are barred from receiving treatments by the act that defines a recipient couple as “a husband and wife.” It would also legalize altruistic surrogacy, which has significant implications for gay couples who want to start a family and prefer to do so through surrogacy rather than adoption.
However, the act and amendment alike have received ample criticism for legislating assisted reproduction alongside surrogacy, which comes with a more contentious set of legal and ethical questions. Advocates fear that the more controversial aspects of legalizing surrogacy could stymie the amendment’s passage, thereby also stalling the right to access assisted reproduction technologies by single women and lesbian couples for which there is widespread support.
The comment period ended in July and the ministry hopes to forward the final draft to the Executive Yuan for approval by the end of the year, but with the criticism continuing unabated, it might take far longer — especially as it would next need to make it through a deeply divided legislature.
LGBTQ+ rights continue to march forward in Taiwan. People in the queer community, the many activists who continue to push for LGBTQ+ rights, and allies in Taiwan and those from abroad this month have a lot to celebrate, as well as a lot more work to do.
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