The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday blocked a bid by a transgender woman to change her legal gender without an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The court said the ruling against the plaintiff, identified as “Vivi,” was in line with previous Supreme Administrative Court opinions regarding changes to ID cards.
However, the court also ordered the plaintiff’s Household Registration Office to reconsider her application to change her gender on her ID card, arguing that a 2008 Ministry of the Interior directive cited by officials for the rejection was unconstitutional.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights via CNA
The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, which provided pro bono support for Vivi, said that while not unexpected, the ruling presented uplifting as well as disappointing aspects.
On the one hand, the ruling reaffirmed that judicial agencies believe a requirement for gender-affirming surgery is unnecessary and reduced the required medical documentation to a single diagnosis of gender dysphoria, said Victoria Hsu (許秀雯), an attorney and cofounder of the alliance.
On the other hand, the court still insisted on framing gender identification in medical terms with the need for a doctor’s endorsement, Hsu added.
A news release by the alliance said that Vivi was calm when she heard about the ruling, although she expressed discomfort that the court still saw gender identification as a “diagnosis.”
Vivi said that unlike previous cases, she had purposefully not sought a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria when she applied to change her ID card.
Instead, she sought to prove that “social evidence” — such as letters from her mother and friends, photographs of her daily life and counseling records — was sufficient to legally change gender, she said.
At oral arguments last month, Vivi said she hoped to present diversity within the transgender community with her test case.
The alliance has argued that medical diagnoses should no longer be a requirement for changing one’s legal gender, with the WHO officially depathologizing being transgender in 2022.
Alliance president Neil Pan (潘天慶), an attorney, interpreted the Supreme Administrative Court’s opinion differently from the High Administrative Court, saying that it centered on “stable gender identity” as well as “proportionality” for requirements on ID change.
Vivi applied to change the gender on her ID card in April last year.
When her application was rejected and her administrative appeal against the rejection denied, she took the matter to court with the help of the alliance.
Currently, household registration agencies follow a 2008 Ministry of the Interior directive requiring applicants seeking to change their ID to provide proof that they have undergone gender-affirming surgery, as well as two separate diagnoses of gender dysphoria.
In the past few years, several people who had not undergone surgery had challenged and won against the administrative agencies.
However, in all these cases, they were still required to present two separate diagnoses of gender dysphoria.
Vivi and the alliance wanted to push the cause further and open up more possibilities for transgender people to receive official recognition through her case.
The alliance said it would appeal the ruling and keep fighting for social evidence to be accepted as grounds for changing one’s legal gender.
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