Social Movements

Calls for Unionization, Improvements in Firefighter Safety, After Deadly Pingtung Blaze

Brian Hioe
There have been calls for improving safety measures for firefighters after a blaze killed four firefighters in Pingtung on Friday. Subsequently, the National Association for Firefighters’ Rights demonstrated on Ketagalan Boulevard on Saturday with a banner listing the names of the 39 firefighters who were killed in the line of duty in the past decade. The incident points to the need for a number of fundamental safety reforms...
EnglishEnvironmentalLaborRaceSeptember 2023Social Movements6 min read

Supreme Administrative Court Rules Against Compulsory Surgery For Changing Legal Gender

Daniel Yo-Ling
On September 21, 2023, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Judicial Yuan nullified the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court's ruling on a transgender woman’s legal gender change appeal and ordered a rehearing. With regards to Ministry of Interior executive order #0970066240, which requires people assigned male at birth to surgically remove their penis and testis and people assigned female at birth to remove their breasts, uterus, and ovaries in order to change their legal gender, the SAC’s decision clearly states that this rule “seriously infringes upon bodily rights, medical rights, human dignity, and right of personality”. Multiple transgender rights organizations, such as the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights and Taiwan Non-binary Queer Sluts, have celebrated the ruling...
EnglishGender/SexualitySeptember 2023Social Movements5 min read

#MeToo Cases in Taiwan Spark Discussion of Deepfakes

Brian Hioe
In August, legal changes to the “Three Gender Equality” laws were passed by the legislature. This was in response to the wave of #MeToo cases that Taiwan has been swept by since late May. Nevertheless, though few of the high-profile cases touched on the issue directly, there has also been increased discussion of “deepfake” images, “revenge porn”, and digitally altered images, as they target women in particular...
EnglishGender/SexualitySeptember 2023Social Movements4 min read

Arts/Culture

Calling For a Return to Sinocentrism in the Name of Opposing It: Responding to ‘Reconsidering Sinophone Studies’

Brian Hioe
The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, one of the flagship journals of the discipline, published an unusual piece several months ago by Flair Donglai Shi. Though framed as an attack on Shih Shu-mei’s concept of the Sinophone, the crux of the piece’s argument is effectively that Taiwan studies is insufficiently Sinocentric...
Arts and CultureEnglishJuly 2021Literature and Poetry8 min read

Interviews

Politics

Tsai’s Eswatini Trip Continues Praise of Authoritarian Monarchy

Brian Hioe

Cartoons as a Tool for Democracy: A Conversation with Stellina Chen

Brian Hioe

Minister of Agriculture Resigns in Wake of Egg Scandals

Brian Hioe

July Bulletproof Armor Controversy Revealing About Civilian-Military Relations

Brian Hioe

Ann Kao Again Embroiled in Controversy

Brian Hioe

Life Continues to Imitate Art Imitating Life with Gou’s Choice of Running Mate

Brian Hioe

International Affairs