Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights

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...
EnglishFeaturedGender/SexualityNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read

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

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

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

Lisbeth Wu Case Sent Back to Taipei High Administrative Court

Yo-Ling Chen
This past Friday, the Constitutional Court of the Judicial Yuan decided not to move forward with a constitutional interpretation for Lisbeth Wu’s case regarding regulations requiring proof of surgery to change one’s legal gender. The specific regulation under scrutiny is 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. Over the past few days, people following Taiwan’s trans rights movement have attempted to make sense of the Constitutional Court’s decision to send Wu’s case back to the Taipei High Administrative Court...
EnglishFebruary 2023Gender/SexualitySocial Movements6 min read

The Struggle for Transgender Rights Continues With Taiwan’s First Legal Gender Change Without Providing Proof of Surgery

Yo-Ling Chen
A variety of events happened this past week with regards to the ongoing struggle for transgender rights in Taiwan, including Taiwan’s first successful legal gender change without submitting proof of surgery, Lisbeth Wu’s second preliminary proceedings, and the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights' second Transgender Film Festival. These gains for transgender rights have not gone unchallenged though, as the past two months have also included increasing opposition...
EnglishGender/SexualityNovember 2021Social Movements10 min read