B. Legal Gender Recognition 34. In Korea, the gender recognition of transgender individuals is confirmed by court decisions. In such cases, judges render their decisions following the Supreme Court’s Guidelines for the Handling of Petition for Legal Sex Change Permit of Transgender People.30 These Guidelines were revised several times to ease the requirements for legal gender recognition. In reality, however, SRS and physical changes still serve as important criteria for judgement.31 As a result, transgender people who wish to legally change their gender are forced to undergo irreversible surgery such as SRS (i.e., genital reconstruction surgery), irrespective of their own wishes. In May 2023, the NHRCK recommended the Supreme Court to revise these Guidelines in line with international human rights norms. It also recommended the National Assembly to legislate a special law establishing the requirements and procedures for recognizing the gender status of transgender people.32 35. Proposed recommendation: The State party should improve the procedures and requirements for legal gender recognition of sexual minorities to be in line with international human rights norms. C. Human Right Policies for Sexual Minorities 36. Although many sexual minorities face discrimination and hatred in Korea, the government currently does not have a specific human rights policy for sexual minorities. Considering that statistical information usually forms the basis for the development of government policies, the NHRCK, in March 2022, recommended five government ministries to add survey index items relevant to sexual minorities to their national statistics surveys. However, those ministries including Statistics Korea did not accept this recommendation. 37. In July 2012, the NHRCK presented a recommendation to the Prime Minister and provincial superintendents of education that they should formulate a comprehensive policy to create a human rights-friendly school culture, including measures to prevent discrimination in schools and pursue education respecting differences and diversity.33 In addition, the Committee in its 4th Concluding Observations recommended Korea to “develop sex education programs that provide students with comprehensive, accurate and age-appropriate information regarding sexuality and diverse gender identities.”34 However, the Guidelines for Sex Education in Schools of the Ministry of Education do not contain any content related to sexual minorities. 38. Proposed recommendation: The State party should develop and add survey index items pertaining to sexual minorities in the nationally approved statistics surveys and formulate human rights policies for sexual minorities, based on the outcomes of statistics surveys. It 9