Yo-Ling Chenby Yo-Ling Chen
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Photo Courtesy of TAPCPR
THIS MORNING at 10 AM, civil society groups held a press conference outside of the Control Yuan to condemn the Ministry of the Interior’s (MOI) inaction in changing its 2008 executive order (內政部97年11月3日內授中戶字第0970066240號令) requiring sexual organ removal surgery to change one’s legal gender, despite a total of six administrative court rulings in the past three years that clearly condemn the surgery requirement. After the press conference, a group of civil society group representatives and transgender community members met privately with a Control Yuan official to cordially request that the Control Yuan open an investigation on the MOI for delaying the abolition of compulsory surgery.
Human rights and gender advocacy groups participating in this morning’s press conference. Photo courtesy of TAPCPR
Organized by the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) and attended by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Amnesty International Taiwan, Covenants Watch, Judicial Reform Association, Taiwan Non-binary Queer Sluts, the Intersex, Transgender and Transsexual People Care Association, Taiwan AIDS Foundation, and the Student Alliance for Gender Equality, TAPCPR Secretary General Chien Chih-Chieh (簡至潔) opened the press conference by explaining how multiple international human rights treaties and judicial rulings all deem the MOI’s 2008 executive order unconstitutional and in violation of fundamental human rights such as bodily autonomy.
TAPCPR Secretary General Chien Chih-Chieh explaining the sources of condemnation of the MOI’s 2008 executive order. Photo courtesy of TAPCPR
Starting with the Taipei High Administrative Court’s (THAC) historic Xiao E ruling in September of 2021, Taiwan’s judicial system has seen multiple decisions and rulings against compulsory surgery–such as by the Supreme Administrative Court in 2023 and the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court in 2024 during Xiao Na’s court battle, and numerous TAHC rulings. Throughout all of these court cases and other ongoing strategic litigation, the MOI has been repeatedly summoned to administrative court hearings to advise household registration offices (the defendants in these cases) on how to proceed. Despite the clear legal consensus against compulsory surgery in Taiwan’s judicial system, the MOI has continued to advise household registration offices to follow its 2008 executive order. Seeing as pressure exerted by Taiwan’s administrative courts on the MOI to change its 2008 executive order has been ineffectual, transgender and human rights advocacy groups have strategically turned to the Control Yuan in search of new ways to push through the MOI’s inertia on this issue.
In addition to judicial rulings against compulsory surgery, international human rights treaties were another point of emphasis during the press conference. Covenants Watch Office Director Chiang Meng-Chen (江孟真) explained in her remarks that multiple national reports for international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) all recommend abolishing the surgery requirement for legal gender change.
Chiang Meng-Chen speaking at press conference. Photo courtesy of TAPCPR
Chiang specifically cited Taiwan’s Second Report on the Implementation of CEDAW from 2014, as well as the 2017 and 2022 reports on the implementation of the ICCPR and ICESCR, which called on “the Government provide for explicit legal recognition of [transgender person’s] freely chosen gender identity, without unnecessary restrictions” and recommended that “the requirement of compulsory gender affirmation surgery as a precondition for a change of gender classification … should be abolished with immediate effect”. Chiang further pointed out that the Second Report on the Implementation of CEDAW “recommends that the Government adopt the views of the Ministry of Health and Welfare meeting on 9 December 2013 where it was recognized that ‘gender identity is a basic human right and that it is not necessary to force or require extirpation of reproductive organs as individual inclination should be respected.’”
Chiang’s reference to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s (MOHW) meeting over a decade ago stands in stark contrast to the MOI’s defense of its 2008 executive order, which also cites the views of the MOHW. In a press release yesterday, the MOI doubled down on the legitimacy of their 2008 executive order, explaining that it was established in accordance with the position of the Department of Health (predecessor to the MOHW), as stated in an October 2008 meeting, that legal gender change should require two medical diagnosis certificates and the completion of irreversible surgery. Towards the end of the press conference, TAPCPR Secretary General Chien condemned the MOI for completely ignoring the international human rights treaty reports, numerous judicial rulings, and even the MOHW’s own position on legal gender change requirements. In response to the MOI’s preemptive press release yesterday, Chien directly quoted the MOHW from a 2014 meeting with the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee, where the MOHW unambiguously stated that it “considers gender identity to be a fundamental human right” and believes that “there is no need to make sex-change surgery mandatory through regulations” for legal gender change.
Chien citing the MOHW from a 2014 meeting. Photo courtesy of TAPCPR
In his press conference remarks, TAPCPR Chairman and attorney Pan Tien-Ching (潘天慶) plainly stated: “The reason we are standing here today is to request that the Control Yuan exercise its lawful powers to investigate the Ministry of the Interior and make the decision to require the Ministry of the Interior to immediately revoke its compulsory surgery requirement executive order.” In accordance with Articles 95 and 96 of the Constitution of the Republic of China, the Control Yuan has the power to investigate Ministries under the Executive Yuan for “violation of law or neglect of duty,” and under Article 97, can “propose corrective measures and forward them to the Executive Yuan and the Ministries and Commissions concerned.”
At the end of the press conference, Control Yuan member Chi Hui-Jung (紀惠容) greeted the crowd, received a formal written statement from TAPCPR explaining civil society groups’ request to investigate the MOI for failing to change its 2008 executive order, and invited group representatives and transgender community members into the Control Yuan for a private meeting to further discuss the investigation request. Overall, Control Yuan Member Chi’s demeanor was welcoming and supportive of the civil society groups’ requests; however, the Control Yuan has not yet publicized whether it will open an investigation on the MOI, and within what timeline such an investigation would proceed.
Control Yuan member Chi Hui-Jung receiving TAPCPR’s written statement requesting investigation of the MOI. Photo courtesy of TAPCPR
With the possibility of additional pressure from the Control Yuan, the MOI will have a harder time justifying its 2008 executive order. It remains to be seen how effective this dual approach of Control Yuan investigation and administrative court rulings will be in moving the MOI, which still insists on the appropriateness of its 2008 executive order, despite over a decade of human rights, judiciary, and (in the case of the MOHW) administrative consensus to the contrary.