(Image: Kobiz Media/Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean court has ruled for the first time that gender can be corrected without surgery to remove reproductive organs or to modify external genitals.
Tthe Suwon District Court said it recently allowed the correction of gender in a case filed by a transgender individual in his 20s.
The individual was born as a woman in 2000 and started recognizing himself as a boy when he became a third grader in middle school.
He was diagnosed with gender incongruence by the department of mental health at a local hospital in 2019.
Thereafter, he underwent mastectomy surgery for both breasts. While going through male hormone therapy, his physical appearance and voice became masculine.
Although he didn’t undergo surgery to remove the uterus or to create a penis, he lived as a man while wearing men’s clothes and adopting male hairstyles.
In the same year, he asked the court to change his legal sex on the family relation certificate to male to comply with his sexual identity.
The court ruled that if the irreversible removal of reproductive organs such as uterus is compulsorily required, it would force the integrity of body to be damaged to get recognition for sexual identity.
The court stressed that the compulsory requirement excessively restricts self-determination rights, personal rights and the right not to be physically harmed.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
