[Opinion] Transgender Happiness

In English the words “sex” and “gender” mean the same thing. Both distinguish male and female, but in actuality the definitions are quite different. Sex indicates the anatomical structure of genes, while gender leans towards the mental and societal. There are a few people whose sex and gender do not match, however. Harisu, the famous Korean celebrity who became known as the “Adam who became Eve” is just one of those people. Harisu’s sex, based on XY chromosomes, is male. But Harisu says that not once has she thought of herself as male. While growing up, she played hopscotch with the girls and during his second year of high school, she decided to undergo a sex exchange operation.

In medical circles, the disparity between sex and gender is referred to as transsexualism. A person with transsexualism feels uncomfortable with their sex chromosomes, believes that he or she belongs to the opposite sex, and is determined to think and behave accordingly. The Korean Medical Association estimates about 5,000 such people are in Korea. Nearly more than 300 have already undergone surgery.

The stance on transsexualism worldwide is largely divided into two groups. Sweden and Germany have enacted special laws to solve the legality problem of sex exchange, while England, France, Korea and Japan follow judicial precedents. In 1972 Sweden established a policy to “allow identification of gender” and Germany was of the opinion that the gender of a human being is congenital and fixed until the federal court decided to create a special policy in 1980 due to human rights issues.

Just yesterday the court made its first decision on the census registration of transgenders. If a woman underwent surgery to become a man, she becomes a male on the family register. In the past the court had wavered between two different rulings; namely that sex exchange is just surgery and nothing more, or that mental and physical change must be admitted. The court ruled in favor of the right to happiness for transgenders.

Song Dae-keun, Editorial Writer, dksong@donga.com