Nguyen Huy Quang, director of the Ministry of Health’s Legal Department, sat down with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday morning to discuss the drafting process for the country’s first-ever Law on Gender Reassignment.
Drafting of the law is seen as the next major step in achieving equality for the transgender community in Vietnam, a process which began when the country’s lawmaking National Assembly approved the revised Civil Code last November that included a provision recognizing the right to sex reassignment.
According to Nguyen Huy Quang, between 4,000 and 5,000 Vietnamese people have undergone sexual reassignment therapy in recent years.
Patients who sought gender reassignment, Quang said, fell into three categories: those who used no medical intervention, those who received hormone replacement therapy, and those who underwent gender reassignment surgery.
The majority of gender-changed Vietnamese are male-to-female transsexuals who had had their surgery performed in Thailand, where the medical procedure is legal, Quang said.
The official stressed, however, that the transgender population in Vietnam faces numerous paperwork difficulties, including reapplying for new IDs and criminal records.
Quang said the differences between a transgender patient’s ID photos and their real-life appearance makes it difficult to carry out basic administrative procedures in schools, workplaces, banks, and public bodies.
According to Quang, the law being drafted will allow those who have had gender reassignment surgery performed at recognized facilities in countries where the procedure is legal to have their registered gender adjusted accordingly.
Those who have had it done at unauthorized facilities, however, will need to undergo further psychological and medical tests before they are allowed to register with their new gender.
Transgender people who are preparing to have their sex reassigned will be required by the new law to try living as their desired gender for a certain period of time before they are allowed to undergo medical intervention.
The first draft of the law is expected to be finished by 2018 and submitted for approval to the National Assembly the same year.
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