Written By Ricarda Rodenas
Image credit: Reproduced from an online article originally published on Them, August 28, 2024. All rights remain with the original author, Samantha Riedel, and photographer I-Hwa Cheng.
Introduction
According to the Ministry of the Interior’s executive order issued in 2008, a person must undergo sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) to change their legal gender. This requirement blocks an estimated 90 per cent of transgender people from obtaining national identification that matches their gender identity. Therefore, every aspect of daily life that requires ID, from registering at a clinic to passing through airport security, becomes a potential site of distress and discrimination.
Since 2013, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has recognised that gender self-identification and determination are human rights that must be respected. It recognises the freedom to be oneself and is supported by many long-recognised rights, including the rights to freedom of speech, equality, privacy, identity, dignity, and to live and act with integrity. Therefore, gender identity is a deeply personal and intimate part of a person’s selfhood; it shouldn’t be mandated by surgical requirements that individuals may not have the time, money, support, or desire to go through.
Moreover, transgender individuals in Taiwan “embody” their gender identity through various forms of bodily expression that are independent of their sexed bodies. The requirement of SRS simplifies the transgender experience as a search for the ‘correct’ physical appearance. It negates the lives of non-binary and gender non-conforming people; if they were permitted to change their legal gender, what type of surgery would be adequate?
A national ID card that doesn’t match a person’s gender identity is a daily burden that weighs heavily in the pockets and purses of transgender people. Despite the recognition that gender self-identification is a human right, there has yet to be substantive reform of the Ministry of the Exterior’s executive order. This scenario is especially puzzling, given that Taiwan is known for its strong civil mobilisation, which secured marriage equality and positioned it as a regional leader on LGBTQ+ rights. Therefore, why are transgender people still denied the right to self-identification in the years following the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2019?
The Pro-Gender Movement
The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) has long pursued legal and policy reform on gender and sexuality issues. Notably, their litigation contributed to Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748 in 2017, which paved the way for marriage equality in 2019. The same strategic toolkit has now been mobilised to contest the surgery requirement, resulting in several plaintiffs, including Xiao E. and Wu Yuxuan, successfully challenging administrative decisions that require proof of surgery to secure legal gender recognition.
Xiao E successfully legally changed gender after an appeal supported by TAPCPR.
Image credit: reproduced from an online article originally published by TAPCPR, December 22, 2021.
While this strategy remains inaccessible to most transgender people, lacking the time, money, or support for a lengthy appeal, these victories still set an important precedent. It highlights the inequality transgender citizens must battle against to be recognised and the need for legal change in the abolition of the MOI executive order, as well as an administrative policy shift that recognises and supports the right to gender self-expression across all government bodies.
Like the TAPCPR, the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (TTHA), the oldest and largest LGBTQ+ organisation in Taiwan, actively opposes gender discrimination. TTHA employs a grassroots and intersectional approach to mobilise internal support. For example, in 2025, TTHA organised its seventh TransMarch, which attracted approximately 3,500 attendees. Beyond its internal mobilisation, TTHA has also worked to increase external awareness and understanding of trans rights. For example, in 2022, the TTHA co-hosted the EU-Taiwan LGBTI Human Rights Conference, which focused on strengthening protections for transgender and intersex rights by facilitating exchanges among officials, academic experts, and civic representatives.
This conference exemplifies TTHA’s role as a driving force behind “Tongzhi diplomacy“, also known as queer diplomacy, a type of softpower strategy that aims to enhance Taiwan’s international image as a liberal democracy and beacon of human rights in Asia through the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights. However, there has been a shift in the international community, notably a rise of populism in the West, and along with it an increase in anti-transgender views. For example, a 2024 report by the ILGA-Europe shows a stark rise in anti-LGBTQ+ and, in particular, transphobic statements from politicians across Europe. Therefore, as Western countries increasingly embrace anti-trans sentiment, Taiwan’s positioning as an LGBTQ+ rights leader becomes paradoxically less advantageous, weakening the strategic value of queer diplomacy compared to what it was during the marriage equality era.
Overall, TAPCPR and TTHA continue to organise and secure meaningful advances for trans rights. Their effort and strategy clearly explain the substantial gap in administrative change for same-sex marriage. However, their struggle alludes to other obstacles, such as a changing international environment that could reflect at-home perceptiveness to transgender struggles.
The Countermovement
Groups such as No Self-ID Taiwan and the Taiwan Women’s Association (TWA) have diverged from the previous countermovement to the marriage equality era. Instead of a traditionally conservative framing steeped in religious and traditional values, these groups have adopted what appears to be a progressive stance by presenting transgender rights as a threat to democracy and feminism. This strategy seeks to divide support bases that have historically been aligned with the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights.
TWA founder Jaclynn Joyce, who has expressed support for same-sex marriage and even attended Pride events, simultaneously crowns herself as the “Queen of the anti-gender movement”. She predominantly argues that the recognition of transgender persons endangers women’s safety, particularly in single-sex spaces, and encroaches on the rights women have worked hard to secure. This aligns with a gender-critical feminist viewpoint, also known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF), which defines womanhood primarily through biological sex, thereby excluding transgender women from feminist discourse and advocacy.
Jaclynn Joyce exemplifies how actors within the countermovement may have experience operating in progressive arenas, which enables these groups not only to borrow tactics from social justice movements but also to act more proactively, framing their cause in progressive language while simultaneously opposing LGBTQ+ rights. For example, No Self-ID Taiwan started an online misinformation campaign, using faulty research methods to suggest that more than 90% of Taiwanese people support proof of surgery to legally change their gender. Since social media algorithms act as an echo chamber, these fabricated statistics circulate unchecked within anti-trans circles, gaining false credibility and appearing to reflect genuine public opinion.
The countermovement also aligns with the rising populist movement. No Self-ID Taiwan’s slogan—“calling a deer a horse” (指鹿為馬, a Han Chinese idiom meaning to deliberately distort reality)—reflects their belief that trans “lobbies” are overriding public opinion and common logic, and so undermining democratic decision-making. This echoes core populist rhetoric that the ‘people’ are being ruled by a corrupted and unnatural ‘elite;’ the risks of this framing have already been visible in the mainstreaming of transphobic policy. For example, Trump’s recent discriminatory Executive Orders enacted within days of returning to office demonstrate how quickly anti-trans rhetoric can translate into policy when populist frames dominate discourse.
TWA and No Self-ID constitute an increasingly organised online force. They have evolved by adopting tactics from progressive movements while simultaneously deploying anti-trans populist rhetoric. However, without substantial offline mobilisation, such as mass demonstrations or workshops organised by the TACPR, the countermovement’s capacity to meaningfully shape the broader public and national policy is questionable.
The 2024 Election
Both victories and losses marked the election for the pro-gender movement. For example, President Lai Ching-te didn’t make gender and sexuality rights a major part of his platform, unlike his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. However, in 2023, he became the most senior government official to attend Taipei Pride. This distinction highlights symbolic over substantive representation because Lai Ching-te clearly demonstrates his support for the LGBTQ+ community in bright rainbow colours, yet makes no concrete administrative pledges, such as reforming the Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) executive order.
Lai Ching-te (centre) marching in the 2023 Taiwan Pride parade.
Image credit: reproduced from President Lai Ching-te’s official Facebook, October 28, 2023.
Pridewatch found that in the 2024 election, more LGBTQ+-friendly candidates both ran and won seats than in the previous cycle. However, Pridewatch’s metrics assess only the general openness of politicians to LGBTQ+ issues, which doesn’t necessarily entail a proactive agenda on transgender rights, further exemplifying merely symbolic support.
A concrete stance did make its way into third-party politics. The Greens (GPT) nominated Abby Wu, Taiwan’s first transgender woman, to run for the Legislative Yuan and made “defending bodily autonomy for people of all genders” a part of their party platform. On the other hand, the Taiwan Solidarity Union firmly positioned itself as the only political party against abolishing compulsory surgery for changing one’s legal gender.
This highlights how an election campaign that explicitly includes trans rights is deemed too niche or risky for the broader public by the mainstream parties (DPP and KMT). Especially considering that economic issues were at the forefront of voter concerns, transgender rights were effectively sidelined in the 2024 election.
Conclusion
After legalising same-sex marriage in 2019, Taiwan has been heralded as a beacon of democracy in Asia, assuming a path dependency for the progression of trans rights. However, out of the 37 countries that both recognise same-sex marriage and allow gender marker changes, Taiwan is the only nation that enforces SRS to change one’s legal gender.
While longstanding LGBTQ+ organisations that fought for marriage equality continue to pursue transgender legal recognition through litigation and community initiatives, they face unprecedented obstacles. The countermovement has evolved into a foreboding presence alongside the global rise of populism, though it remains confined to internal online spheres. Finally, the results of the 2024 election indicate that trans rights are not at the forefront of the political agenda. Ultimately, trans rights are perceived as a minority issue and are unlikely to achieve the same level of national and international visibility as marriage equality.
Yet this stalled progress must be seen not as inevitable but as unjust. Trans rights are not a topic to be debated or pursued when politically convenient; they are lived realities experienced by real people. To live freely without discrimination in one’s gender identity is a human right. It is vital that the requirement for surgery to change one’s legal ID is abolished.
Ricarda Rodenas graduated from SOAS University of London in 2025 with a BA (Hons) in International Relations. During their undergrad, they received a First in the module ‘Elections, Gender and Social Movements in Taiwan,’ taught by Professor Dafydd Fell.
Taiwan Insight 