The Ministry of the Interior has agreed to abolish a requirement that transgender people must undergo surgery before they can change their legal gender status.
The requirement was introduced in an administrative order in 2008. Several NGOs have criticized the requirement. On Thursday, Kuomintang lawmaker Ting Shou-chung and former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, Shih Ming-teh held a joint conference. They said that after communicating with government, the Ministry of the Interior had agreed to abolish the requirement within a month.
Ting said Taiwan has signed into law two United Nations human rights covenants, and that the decision to abolish the requirement of reproductive organ removal is a step forward in the protection of transgender people’s human rights.