Taiwan
— Taiwan's Education Ministry said on Thursday
that it will probe a missionary school's alleged
discrimination against a male teacher who wants to
undergo a sex-change operation to become a woman.
"We won't allow
discrimination. We will tell the school to handle the
case according to the gender equality bill and employment
equality bill," Lin Tong-cheng, an official from the
ministry's central Taiwan office, told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
Lin was responding to
news reports that Concordia Middle School, run by the
Lutheran Church in Chiayi County, is forcing Huang
Ming-cheng to resign because Huang wants to receive
gender-reassignment surgery to become a woman.
Huang, 48, has been
married for 20 years and has four children. He has taught
mathematics at Concordia Middle School for 17 years and
is liked by many students, though he likes to wear
neutral-gender clothes and be called by his English
nickname Janet.
Since boyhood, Huang has
felt he is a girl trapped in a boy's body. In high
school, he tried to castrate himself.
Huang, a devout
Christian, began taking hormone shots nine years ago and
later told his wife and children and won their
support.
Three months ago Huang
began to receive psychiatric evaluation and counselling
to prepare for the gender-reassignment surgery. When he
told his school of his decision to become a woman, school
authorities said he should either work as a man in school
or resign.
On Wednesday, a newspaper
reported Huang's dilemma, prompting school principle Lin
Hsi-lin to hold a news conference to deny he had
threatened Huang. But on Thursday, Huang told reporters
that Lin has asked four times to resign
voluntarily.
"I think it's not fair,
so I refused," he said in an interview aired on several
cable TV channels.
Gender reassignment is
legal in Taiwan, and a Taiwan citizen can even have his
or her gender as shown on an ID card and passport changed
following the operation.
According to Taiwan's
gender equality and equal employment bills, an employer
cannot discriminate against or fire an employee because
of his or her gender.
Since the press reported
Huang's plight on Wednesday, there has been an outpouring
of support for the teacher from students, parents, fellow
teachers and strangers.
"My telephone has been
ringing off the hook. I am so touched by their concern
and support," Huang said.
