Activist urges end to sex change rules

SURASAK GLAHAN Bangkok Post

A transgender advocacy group is calling on the Public Health Ministry to revoke the draft Medical Council of Thailand regulation on sex change surgery, saying it violates human rights.

“This draft regulation deprives transgender people of their basic rights,” Yollada Suanyot, chairperson of the Transgender Women of Thailand group, said yesterday. “We wonder whether our rights and our need to have gender reassignment should be controlled by the council.”

The draft regulation will take effect on being signed by the public health minister.

The group said the council last year sought their views on the draft regulation but did not make the changes they recommended.

A transgender advocacy group is calling on the Public Health Ministry to revoke the draft Medical Council of Thailand regulation on sex change surgery, saying it violates human rights.

The regulation states that gender reassignment surgery is actually a treatment for a mental illness. Ms Yollada said this term should be defined more broadly otherwise it would bring about more social stigma against transgender people.

Under the proposed regulation, individuals allowed to undergo gender reassignment therapy must be at least 18 years old, obtain permission from at least two psychologists, and try living as a woman for at least a year before going through a final assessment.

Ms Yollada, who has undergone gender reassignment, said the concern over the age issue was a good thing but this should not become a legal restriction. The requirement for a one-year trial period would make it harder for transgender people to have a sex change even if they had already lived for a long period as a woman, said Ms Yollada. It was also unclear what the standards for evaluation were after this phase, she said.

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