Jiyi Wu (吳芷儀) is adamant that she is not a man. Or, for that matter, a woman.
“People wonder. I bought chewing gum once from a grandmother on the street and she asked me if I am a man or a woman,” said Wu, 29, who was dressed in a long blouse and had let her hair down.
“The answer is I want my body to be more feminine — that is why I had my surgery,” she said. “But my gender is fluid. I don’t think of it as female or male.”
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
Wu, who freely embraces other labels like housewife and professional cat lover, was born male, but began hormone treatment in 2007 and completed male-to-female sex reassignment surgery last July.
A few months after the surgery, Wu — who was still legally listed as a man — applied to marry longtime partner Abbygail Wu (吳伊婷), a transgender person who had already transferred her legal status from man to woman. The Household Registration Office (戶政事務所) approved the certificate for a union that was — on paper — between a man and a woman.
But to the Wus, theirs is not a marriage between a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman.
“We aren’t lesbians,” said 27-year-old Abbygail Wu, a software engineer.
Instead, she and her partner identify themselves as genderqueer — a “third gender,” said Jiyi Wu. “We are a genderqueer person married to another genderqueer person.”
ANNULMENT
Nine months in and their marriage is already on the rocks, though not for the usual reasons.
The Wanhua District Household Registration Office, under authorization by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), has issued the couple a notice that their marriage is illegitimate. According to office records, Jiyi Wu and Abbygail Wu completed male-to-female sex reassignment surgery in July, and Abbygail Wu obtained legal status as a woman on Oct. 11. The Wus registered for marriage on Oct. 16.
“In this case, both parties concerned had completed their sexual reassignment surgery from male to female before registering their marriage,” according to a written statement by MOI official Kao Chiu-feng (高秋鳳).
“Because both were women at the time of marriage, conditions do not fulfill the Civil Code (民法) stipulation that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Kao wrote.
Biological determinism
The Wus and their supporters believe that government authorities are using a crude form of biological determinism to confer gender.
“This marriage is between a person with a man’s legal status and a person with a woman’s legal status,” said Democratic Progressive Party legislator Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who with party lawmaker Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) has submitted a complaint to the MOI on the Wus’ behalf. “Going by their IDs, it’s absolutely legitimate.”
To delegitimize the marriage, the MOI chooses to ignore their household registration and looks instead at their bodies to conclude that Jiyi Wu, because she no longer has testes or a penis, is not a man.
“The MOI is saying that only a man with the biological profile of a man can marry a biological woman,” said Cheng.
In every society there are many persons who do not fit the normal biological profile. Some women don’t menstruate, simply because they are taking a certain medication, or because they are pregnant, underweight, overweight or chronically exhausted. Some men lose their sexual organs due to cancer or other diseases.
Under the logic of biological determinism, a man who does not function biologically as society’s vision of a man would not be considered eligible for marriage to a woman, and vice versa.
QUEER MARRIAGE
Such a policy ruling is unthinkable when it comes to people who identify clearly as a man or a woman, but it’s a reality for the Wus.
There is currently no law that guarantees the marriage rights of a genderqueer person, whose union often falls into the category of same-sex marriage.
To circumvent Ministry of Justice interpretations that ban gay marriage, a genderqueer person can choose to transition to another gender category, but faces formidable hurdles.
Under MOI rules established in 2008, a person who wants a sex change must be deemed qualified by two psychiatrists and must have undergone sex reassignment surgery. For a female-to-male sex change, the person must have removed the breasts, uterus and ovaries. For a male-to-female sex change, the person must have surgically removed the penis and testes.
These requirements turn many genderqueer individuals away from getting their desired sex change. Some do not want to lose their sexual organs. Others simply can’t afford the surgeries.
In over 10 countries, such as the UK, medical surgery is not a requirement for a gender reassignment. Argentina, in an unprecedented move, has removed all requirements for a legal gender change, so that a person can change gender purely on request.
The MOI is rethinking its gender recognition policy and is midway through a survey of how other countries handle the issue, said Su Chih-meng (蘇誌盟), director of Population Policy at the MOI’s Department of Household Registration (戶政司人口政策), to the Taipei Times. Decisions will be announced in November.
Climate change, political headwinds and diverging market dynamics around the world have pushed coffee prices to fresh records, jacking up the cost of your everyday brew or a barista’s signature macchiato. While the current hot streak may calm down in the coming months, experts and industry insiders expect volatility will remain the watchword, giving little visibility for producers — two-thirds of whom farm parcels of less than one hectare. METEORIC RISE The price of arabica beans listed in New York surged by 90 percent last year, smashing on Dec. 10 a record dating from 1977 — US$3.48 per pound. Robusta prices have
The resignation of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) co-founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as party chair on Jan. 1 has led to an interesting battle between two leading party figures, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如). For years the party has been a one-man show, but with Ko being held incommunicado while on trial for corruption, the new chair’s leadership could be make or break for the young party. Not only are the two very different in style, their backgrounds are very different. Tsai is a co-founder of the TPP and has been with Ko from the very beginning. Huang has
A few years ago, getting a visa to visit China was a “ball ache,” says Kate Murray. The Australian was going for a four-day trade show, but the visa required a formal invitation from the organizers and what felt like “a thousand forms.” “They wanted so many details about your life and personal life,” she tells the Guardian. “The paperwork was bonkers.” But were she to go back again now, Murray could just jump on the plane. Australians are among citizens of almost 40 countries for which China now waives visas for business, tourism or family visits for up to four weeks. It’s
A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going. “Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors. Despite most of
RSS