Part I Experiences of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex in the Asia Pacific guarantees the right to self-identify as male or female or as a third gender, given the role it proposes for Screening Committees in determining whether someone is eligible to receive a transgender identity card.209 In addition, since the decision, some transgender women and transgender men have been required to show proof of ‘sex reassignment surgery’ before gaining legal gender recognition.210 In Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, legal gender recognition is only possible after undergoing gender reassignment surgeries and sterilisation. In November 2015, the Vietnamese National Assembly approved a bill to legalise ‘sex change surgery’ and introduce the right to legal gender recognition for transgender people who have undergone such surgery.211 In 2010, the Kazakhstan Commissioner for Human Rights was alerted to difficulties faced by transgender people approaching government registry offices to change their sex details on identity documents. Their requests were denied, despite a 2003 Ministry of Health directive allowing individuals to change their legally recognised gender.212 The Commissioner’s investigation identified contradictory provisions and recommended changes. A 2015 Human Rights Watch report has documented the impact of the government’s policy changes, including their adoption of new guidelines in 2011. It has strongly criticised the additional requirement to undergo hormonal therapy and surgeries, at a time when international human rights standards have increasingly spoken out against forced sterilisation and medical interventions as a pre-condition for legal gender recognition.213 As the Yogyakarta Principles note, a person’s self-defined gender identity is an integral part of who they are and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom. No part of the Asia Pacific region, apart from one territory in Australia, has gender recognition laws that fully respect transgender people’s right to recognition before the law.214 3.5.4. Provisions that discriminate on the grounds of age, marital or family status Even where court decisions, laws or regulations enable some transgender people to obtain legal gender recognition, these provisions often explicitly exclude other transgender people. For example, provisions in Singapore, South Korea and Japan, exclude those under the age of 20, those who are married and those with children under the age of 20 from amending the sex details on their official identity documents. This means that transgender people who are already married are forced to divorce to gain legal gender recognition. The restrictions are even tighter in some countries. For example, transgender people in China are required to inform direct relatives, live and work in their affirmed gender (even if they face discrimination in doing so) and have no criminal record. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health bases its policy on identity recognition on the principle of self-determination. This principle underpins best practice laws or decrees in Argentina, Malta, Ireland, Denmark and Colombia.215 The Association urges governments to adopt simple, accessible 209 D Sanyal and N Mukherjee, The Supreme Court NALSA Judgement: Where Now? A Brief Critique, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, May 2015; at http://orinam.net/content/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/25-sc-nlsa-tg-petitionverdict-gap-analysis-wbnujs-fnl.pdf. 210 Presentation by the Lawyers Collective, Delhi, at the Being LGBT in Asia Regional Dialogue, 27 February 2015, Bangkok, Thailand. 211 This provision is planned to come into effect on 1 January 2017 and will require the drafting of specific provisions enabling a transgender person’s legal status to be changed. 212 Order of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 3 June 2003, No. 435 On the Guidelines of Medical Investigations of People with Gender Identification Disorders; at www.shb-info.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/kazakhstan.pdf. 213 Human Rights Watch, “That’s When I Realized I Was Nobody”: A Climate of fear for LGBT People in Kazakhstan, 23 July 2015; at www.hrw.org/node/279496. 214 Health Policy Project et al, 2015. 215 Argentina, Ley 26743: Derecho a la identidad de género [Decree No. 773/12 of Law No. 26743: Right to gender identity]; Malta, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act 2015; Ireland, Gender Recognition Act 2015; Denmark, Motion to Law amending the Law on the Central Office (Assigning new personal number for people who experience themselves as belonging to the other sex; Colombia, Decree 1227 of 2015 “By which adds a section to Decree 1069 of 2015, Regulation of the Justice and Law Sector, related to the procedure to correct the sex component in the Civil Status Registry”. 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