Gender/Sexuality

Gender Equity and Taiwan’s Independence: A Decolonial Perspective on Community Interests and Conflicts

Lorraine Pan
Can gender equity issues like women's and LGBTQ rights be discussed along with Taiwan independence? Is there one more important and urgent topic among all the issues concerning different marginalized people? When issues such as feminism and LGBTQ rights are discussed together with social news, there is often criticism that talking about marginalized people is a way to distract people and divert public resources from the issue of Taiwan independence. However, from a decolonial perspective, gender equity and Taiwan independence move in the same direction and support each other...
EnglishGender/SexualityMay 2025Self-DeterminationSocial MovementsYouth Movements5 min read

Civil Society Groups Ask Control Yuan to Investigate Ministry of the Interior for Maintaining Compulsory Surgery

Yo-Ling Chen
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...
EnglishGender/SexualityMarch 2025Social Movements10 min read

Media Fixation on Johanne Liou Illustrates Continued Sexism, A Decade After the Sunflower Movement

Brian Hioe
Former Sunflower Movement participant Johanne Liou is to be deported from the US next month, facing charges related to drug trafficking and fraud. The arrest was conducted by ICE, with Taiwanese authorities stating that they requested Liou’s extradition. Liou did not appear at the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office in 2023, which resulted in charges against her...
EnglishFebruary 2025Gender/SexualityPoliticsSelf-DeterminationSocial MovementsYouth Movements4 min read

Li Kotomi Comes Out as Transgender After Being Outed by Taiwan’s Anti-Gender Movement

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday evening on Transgender Day of Remembrance, critically acclaimed Taiwanese fiction writer Li Kotomi reluctantly issued a public statement disclosing her transgender status after years of being outed, harassed, and doxxed online by anti-gender accounts in Taiwan. Shortly after, Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association issued a statement in support of Li. In addition to her personal TDOR statement, Li also co-organized a “Statement by Authors in Japan Opposing LGBTQ+ Discrimination,” which was signed by 51 novelists in Japan and was released earlier in the day. Li’s public response to her outing comes in the wake of yet another surge in anti-gender discourse online and draws attention to the increasingly transnational character of anti-gender mobilizations in Taiwan...
Arts and CultureEnglishGender/SexualityLiterature and PoetryNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read

Taiwan Sees Rise in Anti-Gender Discourse Online

Yo-Ling Chen
October was especially difficult for Taiwan’s transgender community, as a wave of anti-gender discourse flooded social media as a result of Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights’ strategic litigation plaintiff Lisbeth Wu finally changing her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery on October 8th. Wu’s case challenging compulsory surgery for legal gender change was initiated on Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2020 and finally received a favorable ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court ruling on August 26th earlier this year. Before this court case, TAPCPR began representing Wu in 2018 for her then lawsuit against Chang Gung University for refusing to house her in women’s dormitories, which she won on June 25, 2021...
EnglishGender/SexualityNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read