Yo-Ling Chen

Lisbeth Wu Wins Court Case Against Compulsory Surgery for Changing Legal Gender

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday, the Taipei Administrative Court ruled in favor of transgender plaintiff Lisbeth Wu’s case to change her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery. Despite being the first strategic litigation case that the Taiwan Alliance for Civil Partnership Rights took on that was aimed at challenging the current Ministry of Interior executive order (內政部97年11月3日內授中戶字第0970066240號令) requiring proof of surgery for changing one’s legal gender, Wu had to wait almost four long years before receiving the THAC’s ruling yesterday...
August 2024EnglishGender/SexualitySocial Movements4 min read

Taipei High Administrative Court Rules in Defense of Soft Medical Model for Legal Gender Change

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday, the Taipei High Administrative Court issued their ruling on Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights strategic litigation plaintiff Vivi’s court appeal to change her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery. While the THAC’s ruling condemned the surgery requirement for changing one’s legal gender as unconstitutional, it ordered the Daan District Household Registration Office reprocess Vivi’s legal gender change application in accordance to the recommendations set out in the Supreme Administrative Court’s September 2023 ruling, which requires medical evidence of the stability of one’s gender identity...
August 2024EnglishGender/SexualitySocial Movements5 min read

Taipei High Administrative Court’s Third Ruling Against Compulsory Surgery

Yo-Ling Chen
On July 11th, the Taipei High Administrative Court made its third ruling in favor of a transgender plaintiff seeking to change their legal gender without undergoing sexual organ removal surgery. The plaintiff, a transgender women who was pseudonymized as L by the Central News Agency this past weekend in the first Chinese language news report on this court ruling, was represented by Prisma Attorneys-at-Law founding lawyer Titan Deng. While L’s court victory does not appear to be a part of coordinated strategic litigation attempts to abolish the surgery requirement for changing one’s legal gender by groups such as the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR), it is nevertheless another milestone ruling that further consolidates legal consensus against compulsory surgery...
August 2024EnglishGender/SexualitySocial Movements4 min read

Taiwan’s First Transgender Man to Change His Legal Gender Without Providing Proof of Surgery

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday, Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights plaintiff Nemo finally received his official court decision letter from the Taipei High Administrative Court, who ruled in favor of Nemo’s administrative appeal case on May 30 to allow him to change his gender without providing proof of surgery. Since the Xinyi District Household Registration Office decided not to appeal the Taipei High Administrative Court’s decision, Nemo immediately rushed to Xinyi Household Registration Office with his aunt, Mimi, immediately after receiving his court decision letter and successfully changed his legal gender marker from female to male...
EnglishGender/SexualityJuly 2024Social Movements4 min read

Kaohsiung High Administrative Court Rules Against Compulsory Surgery

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday afternoon at 4:00 PM, the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court (KHAC) ruled in favor of a transgender woman’s administrative appeal case to change her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery. This ruling comes after the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled last September that the KHAC’s original ruling for plaintiff Xiao Na (小那, pseudonym) on May 25, 2021 was null, and that the KHAC re-hear Xiao Na’s case. Today’s KHAC ruling is the third successful administrative appeal case of transgender plaintiffs in Taiwan seeking to change their legal gender without undergoing proof of surgery. The content of the KHAC’s ruling this afternoon shows how legal consensus around abolishing compulsory surgery is becoming taken for granted in Taiwan in recent years...
EnglishGender/SexualityJuly 2024PoliticsSocial Movements5 min read

High Administrative Court Rules Again Against Surgery Requirement for Legal Gender Change

Yo-Ling Chen
This morning at 10:30 AM, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled in favor of a transgender man’s administrative appeal case to change his legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery. The plaintiff, known by the pseudonym of Nemo, was represented by the Taiwan Alliance for Civil Partnership Rights and is likely to become the first transgender man in Taiwan to change his legal gender to male without undergoing compulsory sterilization surgery...
EnglishGender/SexualityMay 2024Social Movements6 min read

Global Solidarity Protest for Russia’s LGBT+ Community Held in Taipei

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday afternoon, on the first day of Russia’s presidential election, civil society groups hosted a solidarity protest for Russia’s LGBT+ community outside of the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission on Economic and Cultural Cooperation’s office in Taipei. The protest, organized by the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, was part of All Out’s “Global Speak Out for the Russian LGBT+ Community” campaign, which included coordinated protests in ten other countries across the world...
EnglishGender/SexualityMarch 2024Social Movements5 min read

When Will ARA Amendment Discussions Account For Transgender Reproductive Rights?

Yo-Ling Chen
This past Wednesday, the Taiwan Women’s Link hosted a press conference calling for opening up access to assisted reproduction and decoupling the issue of surrogacy from amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (ARA). As part of the press conference, TWL released a petition calling for prioritizing assisted reproduction access for single women and lesbian spouses, such that “all women who want to reproduce” may do so under a system that “ensures women’s reproductive autonomy.” While the TWL’s petition and press conference helped to raise awareness of reproductive rights in Taiwan, it failed to account for the reproductive rights of transgender people in Taiwan...
EnglishFebruary 2024Gender/SexualitySocial Movements7 min read

Transgender Issues Enter Third Party Politics

Yo-Ling Chen
In the past three months, transgender issues have gained unprecedented attention within third party politics in Taiwan, with the Taiwan Solidarity Union rebranding itself as the only political party against abolishing compulsory surgery for changing one’s legal gender and Green Party Taiwan putting forward Taiwan’s first transgender woman to run for office, Abby Wu, as an at-large legislative candidate. This is the first time in Taiwan’s history that transgender issues have been explicitly incorporated into party campaigning. While transgender issues have yet to become a campaign issue in mainstream party politics, the current standoff between the two parties offers a first look into how such politicization would likely play out as the struggle for transgender rights in Taiwan continues...
EnglishGender/SexualityJanuary 2023PoliticsSocial Movements12 min read

Supreme Administrative Court Rules Against Compulsory Surgery For Changing Legal Gender

Yo-Ling Chen
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
Avatar photo

Yo-Ling Chen