Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) A transgender woman has successfully gotten her gender on her ID card changed from male to female after winning a case against her local household registration office for refusing to do so, the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) said Friday.
Accompanied by TAPCPR lawyers, the transgender woman, who identifies herself as "Xiao E" (小E), got the gender on her ID card corrected at the Daxi Household Registration Office in Taoyuan on Thursday, Nov. 18, TAPCPR announced in a press release.
The move came just three days after the Taipei High Administrative Court announced that its Sept. 23 landmark court ruling, where the court ordered the office in question to allow Xiao E to change the gender on her ID without providing proof of a sex reassignment surgery, had not been appealed by the office.
Previously, the office had denied Xiao E's application to have her gender changed on her ID card in Oct. 2019 based on a Ministry of the Interior (MOI) directive from 2008.
The directive decreed that any person applying for a change in gender on his or her ID would need to provide certificates or proof that the individual has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and had underwent gender affirmation surgery.
Instead of providing paperwork for both requirements, Xiao E only submitted certificates issued by two separate psychiatric institutes that diagnosed her as having a female gender identity.
Xiao E then took the case to court, resulting in an unprecedented verdict on Sept. 23 in which the court ordered the office to approve and move forward with Xiao E's application.
The verdict was confirmed on Nov. 15, when the court announced that the office had not filed an appeal.
In the TAPCPR press release issued Friday, the alliance hailed the verdict as a milestone but also noted that the result was an individual case and could not be applied to others.
TAPCPR lawyer Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) said if the government failed to amend the legislature on laws surrounding such issues, there would be more cases of transgender people being denied requests for gender correction on their IDs due to not having paperwork proof of sex reassignment surgery.
Echoing Hsu, TAPCPR Secretary General Chien Chih-chieh (簡至潔) added that as the court's ruling was in favor of Xiao E, this proved that certain regulations such as the MOI directive are archaic and unconstitutional.
Chien said that in the spirit of humanitarianism and rule of law, directives that could harm transgender individuals should be amended as soon as possible.
TAPCPR also thanked the court for a brave decision, and shed more light on the significance of Xiao E's victory, calling it symbolic as it came two days before the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20.
The day is a memorial day for transgender people who have been murdered due to transphobia. Traditionally, the day also aims to draw attention to the continued violence endured by transgender people.
