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| The National Human Rights Commission of Korea/ Korea Times file |
Granting a change of legal gender solely based on whether the petitioner had sex reassignment surgery constitutes a grave human rights violation, the state human rights watchdog said Thursday.
The National Human Rights Commission issued the opinion on a petition lodged by Rainbow Action Against Sexual-Minority Discrimination of Korea, a civic advocacy group for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, in 2021.
The current court guidelines on registering a change of legal gender allow courts to investigate whether the applicant acquired the external genital organs or other physical qualities of the desired sex through sex reassignment surgery and whether he or she lost fertility as a result of the operation.
Rainbow Action accused some courts of using the guidelines as the criteria for granting a legal sex change, forcing transgender people to undergo unwanted surgery to have their legal gender status changed. The group claimed the court practice infringes upon transgender people's rights to self-determination.
The commission on Thursday disclosed its decision to dismiss the petition by Rainbow Action, saying it's up to each court to decide what criteria should be applied in granting a legal sex change.
The commission, however, concluded that turning to the record of sex reassignment surgery as the criteria for granting a legal sex change constitutes a grave rights violation because it disregards the different necessity and risks of such operations for each transgender person.
"Despite the availability of alternative means, such as psychiatric evaluations or hormonal therapy, requiring only surgical procedures even without looking into the personal circumstances of each petitioner runs counter to the principle of (inflicting) minimum right infringement," the human rights watchdog said.
The watchdog also recommended the chief of the Supreme Court revise the guidelines in question and the speaker of the National Assembly legislate a special law on transgender people's change of legal sex status. (Yonhap)
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