A transgender person’s application in 2020 to change the gender on their national identification card, which was rejected, is lawful and should be allowed without the need for gender-
affirming surgery, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled on Monday.
In ruling in favor of the person, identified only by their surname, Wu (吳), the court ordered the household registration office to accept the application and proceed with the legal gender change.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights via CNA
The court’s ruling can be appealed.
The court said that Wu should be able to change the gender shown on the ID card to female because the application included legally required documents, including a US passport.
Wu, who has dual Taiwan-US nationality, presented two hospital diagnoses of gender dysphoria and a US passport showing her as female when she applied for an ID card change at the Zhongzheng District Household Registration Office in Taipei on Nov. 20, 2020, the court said.
The office rejected the application based on the lack of a diagnosis of a gender-affirming operation, as required under the Ministry of the Interior’s 2008 directive that lists such a diagnosis as a “necessary document,” the court said.
It did not apply the 2008 directive because the directive turns the medical records of individuals undergoing a highly invasive procedure into the only documents deemed necessary to affirm a gender change on an ID card, it said.
That puts an added burden not stipulated in the law on the individual and contravenes the Constitution’s doctrine of proportionality, the court said.
Although the Constitutional Court in 2023 decided not to hear Wu’s case, the administrative court said it was still up to it to determine whether the 2008 directive was constitutional.
Citing a 2021 ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court as the standard in reviewing gender-change applications, Monday’s ruling said that Wu been living as a woman since 2017 fulfilled one of the criteria.
In addition, diagnoses from two different hospitals stated that the confirmation of her legal gender as a woman would help ease symptoms of gender dysphoria, it said.
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