Springfield, VA, USA. This is a response to the TS-Si news report, TS Ruling Signals Change In Korea. According to the Supreme Court of Korea: “Gender should be decided by not only physical appearance, but also the person's mentality and psychology, and society's attitude to that person. This means that gender is decided by diverse factors, and that a person's mental and social gender, which he or she did not recognize at birth, can be found during his or her social life."

 

The case before the Court involved a woman (born anatomically male) who had could not change her government documents, including her birth certificate, to reflect her correct sex. Lower courts had refused her request on two separate occasions.

 

Justice Kim Ji-hyung said "If one is clearly recognizable as the opposite sex in both appearance and individual and social life after having sex-change surgery, he or she has the right to pursue dignity, value and happiness as a human and live humanely."

 

The Justice also said that "We should recognize their changed gender if this does not go against public interests or order."

 

The Five Criteria. According to the Court, a person is determined to be transsexual, and can change their gender in official records, if the following criteria have been met:

 

Those who meet the five criteria above can legally have the new gender.

 

No one knows for sure, but it is generally estimated that about 30,000 transsexuals live in South Korea.

 

The Korean Supreme Court doesn’t fool around. There was no discussion of gender spectrums, no consideration of post modern arguments about social constructs, no concern for identity politics, no co-mingling of transsexuality with transgenderism, and, most clearly, no subjective leeway about who is transsexual.

 

Just the Facts, Ma’am. The Korean Supreme Court was only concerned with the science and the medical protocols.  No exceptions were made for gender queers, crossdressers, or men who want to get in touch with their feminine side.  If you are a person born transsexual and wish to change your gender on the official records so that you can live in your new gender, you must:

 

If you don’t want to

 

The Bottom Line. You may be transgendered, you may be living as the other sex, you may get in touch with your feminine side every chance you get, but, in Korea at least, you are not transsexual.

 

We expect the courts in other countries to review the ruling of the Korean Supreme Court and consider its precedent when determining their own rulings.

 

If nothing else, the Korean Supreme Court set forth a logical, medically supported, fact-based ruling supported by scientific research that will be difficult to rationally refute.

 

 

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