When the news broke, Abbygail Wu (吳伊婷) was standing outside the Ministry of the Interior, holding photocopies of a press statement that detailed just what she thought of the officials inside.
“They decided the fate of our marriage in this closed-door meeting, without having consulted us. The government’s role should be to protect the people and act on behalf of the people. Why have they turned around and broken up a family? We don’t need this kind of government, and we think this decision is completely unfounded,” she wrote with her partner, Jiyi Wu (吳芷儀).
But in a verdict that caught the couple off guard, officials ruled to uphold their 10-month-old marriage. At 5:10pm, Victoria Hsu (許秀雯), director of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR, 伴侶盟), who was representing their interests at the meeting, notified them via text message that officials had ruled in their favor. “I didn’t believe it until she came out and said it again,” said Abbygail Wu.
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
The decision recognizes the Wus — a transgender couple who are both registered as female — as lawfully wedded. LGBT activists and international media have lauded the decision, saying it will help push a gay marriage amendment that Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) will introduce in September.
Hsu, who co-wrote the amendment draft, said she is very optimistic about the bill’s prospects. According to a TAPCPR survey conducted in June and July, over 50 percent of Taiwanese support gay marriage, and public support for LGBT rights are only strengthening over time, she said.
However, Hsu said that when deliberating over the Wus’ case, government officials made no concessions or new moves on gay marriage.
Last Wednesday, in her opening remarks, convener and Deputy Interior Minister Lin Tzu-ling (林慈玲) stressed that the agenda is “absolutely unrelated to the gay marriage issue, which is a matter for the Legislative Yuan,” Hsu said.
Hsu reported that during the three-hour discussion, one main argument against the marriage was that sanctioning it provides a loophole for same-sex marriage. For example, one woman in a lesbian relationship can apply for a sex change and then marry her partner, according to Hsu.
“This argument is based on the belief that many gay people would be willing to undergo an operation and live as another gender. In other words, these officials believe that homosexual orientation is the same thing as transgender identity. But for most gay people, that is not true,” she said.
Asked why the interior ministry made its about-face, Hsu responded that officials decided that they do not have a legal basis for marriage revocation. “I think the interior ministry is aware that it does not have the legal support to take away rights, and the reason is that there are no laws that govern sexual identification.
“In Argentina and the UK, there are laws. The point is not that they are liberal laws, though it is true that they are liberal. The point is that the laws exist,” she said.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Over the past year, a peculiar phrase has begun to litter Asian women’s social media accounts: “Oxford study.” An Asian woman vlogging about her dating life — and particularly about dating white men — gets commenters reacting to her updates with the words “Oxford study.” A young Asian student showing off her prom dress with her white boyfriend sees “obligatory Oxford study comment” on her TikTok. “I can already hear the oxford study comments coming,” one Asian woman captions a video of her dancing with her white partner. The phrase “Oxford study” refers to just that: an academic study out of Oxford
In spite of the next local elections being over two years away, there is already considerable intrigue and jockeying for position by politicians and their supporters. The local press runs quite a bit of content, mostly speculative, on who will run in what races and what the outcomes might be. This is an overview for English language readers to get a taste of the state of play. Four races in particular are drawing a lot of heat, those of mayors of New Taipei City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung because in all four the incumbent mayors will be term-limited out. In