Transgender people in Taiwan will no longer be forced to have surgery in order to have their true gender legally recognized.
In 2008, Taiwan’s government issued an administrative order that trans people could not change their legal gender markers without evaluations by two separate psychiatrists as well as surgery removing “gender-specific” body parts. Finally, the Ministry of the Interior has realized this policy was discriminatory and unnecessary.
Taiwanese advocates have long argued that all citizens should be able to self-identify their own genders, according to the Times. In December 2013, the Ministry of Health and Welfare agreed, recommending to the Ministry of the Interior that trans citizens face no medical requirements at all in order to have their genders legally recognized.
Though initially reported as an official policy — and, indeed, a groundbreaking one worldwide, as most countries still at least require a doctor’s corroboration to acknowledge that a person is transgender — the recommendation was never adopted by the Ministry of the Interior, notes Gay Star News.
Rather, the government’s Ministry of the Interior has indicated that it will work with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to come up with alternative criteria for gender reassignment applications.
Surgical requirements for legal gender changes are demeaning and harsh, and should not be the standard anywhere. Huge props to those in Taiwan who worked to help make this happen.