2024/07/31 New Bloom Newsletter
Collusion and corruption,another win for transgender rights, call for support for trans activist Abby Wu
Hi everyone, this is Yo-Ling again since El is still traveling. We’ve been kind of slow on events the past two weeks, but there has been a lot of trans related stuff happening, including a call for support for trans activist/politician Abby Wu, which you can read about in detail below. But first, the news:
New Bloom News
Taiwanese politics continued to be impacted by the US presidential election cycle in late July, with potential implications after US president Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid in favor of his vice president, Kamala Harris being discussed. This change has figured into cross-strait contention between the KMT and DPP, with former president Ma Ying-jeou lashing out at current president Lai Ching-te through a statement on Facebook that perhaps drew on the narratives of unreliability that had come to surround Biden before his withdrawal.
In the same timeframe, the pan-Blue camp has been hit by a number of legal cases. Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao of the TPP will be removed from office, facing a sentence of seven years and four months over embezzling public funds. KMT legislator Yen Kuan-heng will not be removed from office, but faces eight years and four months in jail on similar charges. Hsinchu county magistrate Yang Wen-ke of the KMT has also been indicted on collusion charges with a construction firm.
More positively, on July 17th, the Kaohsiung High Administrative Court ruled against compulsory surgery requirements for changing legal gender after a transgender woman’s appeal to change her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery. This ruling comes after the Supreme Adminsitrative Court overturned the original court decision and ordered a re-hearing last September. In addition, on July 19th, Nemo—the transgender male plaintiff who won his appeal with the Taipei High Administrative Court at the end of May to change his legal gender without providing proof of surgery—succesfully changed his legal gender at the Xinyi District Household Registration Office, thus becoming the first transgender man to do so without providing proof of surgery in Taiwan’s history.
DAYBREAK Events
(Please see our Facebook page for all upcoming and past events)
2024/7/27：T&N Party Summer Edition
On Saturday July 27, New Bloom co-hosted the summer edition of our T&N Party series for transgender and nonbinary community members and allies in collaboration with Trif Trans Bar, Taiwan Non-Binary Queer Sluts, and Queer Margins. We had our usual crowd of about 50 people, plus about 10 or so new faces come through; the photo above is of the attendees who were comfortable being publicly photographed. Overall, our T&N Party series has become a regular social staple in the trans/nonbinary social scene in Taipei.
Once again, we invited transgender activist Abby Wu (吳依婷) to DJ for us; she played a two hour set starting at 7PM.
Which brings me to…
A Special Request
For folks who do not know who Abby Wu is, she has been doing transgender rights advocacy work in Taiwan for over a decade and a half. In 2009, she co-founded the Intersex, Transgender and Transsexual People Care Association (ISTSCare) with her thn partner. She and was also the plaintiff of a historic legal victory that resulted in legal protections for Taiwan’s first de facto same-sex marriage in 2013, since Abby and her then spouse both changed their legal genders to female. From 2013 to 2014, she was also at the forefront of efforts to abolish the compulsory surgery requirement for changing one’s legal gender (yes, you heard right, a decade ago!).
In this last election, Abby was also the first openly transgender women to run for the Legislative Yuan as part of Green Party Taiwan’s party ticket. For a brief rundown of Abby’s truly extensive activist resume, please see her introductory Patreon post.
In recent months, Abby has come into some financial insecurity that is preventing her from continuing her transgender advocacy work. She is in the midst of maintaining a high degree of trans advocacy work activity, completing a short documentary project, searching for work and other sources of income, as well as doing a lot of behind-the-scenes emotional labor related to transgender community support. Without sharing too much of her personal financial situation, depending on how much she is able to crowdfund, she may have to adjust down some of her trans advocacy work in the next month or two, which would truly be a shame! Please consider donating to Abby’s Patreon and/or sharing it with others—every dollar and every share (either publicly or DM’d) helps~
Okay, that’s it for the second half of July. Looking ahead into August, we have a pretty packed event schedule!
Coming up
2024/08/01: The Unique Experiences & Narratives of Re-Rooting Among Taiwanese Americans - The final talk in our series on Taiwanese and Taiwanese diaspora mental health and inter-generational trauma with Taiwan Multicultural Counseling Association founder Evon Chiu.
2024/08/02: Class Struggle in Taiwan: A Conversation with Taiwanese Labor Activists - Featuring NTU Sociology Professor Ho Ming-Sho, Deputy Secretary for the Taiwan Federation of Financial Unions Catta Chou, Deputy General Secretary of the Taiwan Labor Front Shu-Wei Yang, Director of Migrant Worker Policy at Serve the People Association Lennon Wong, and Taiwanese American labor activist Tim Tia.
2024/08/09: A Deal With the Universe screening - I (Yo-Ling) recently completed Chinese-English subtitling for Jason Barker’s documentary about him and his partner’s assisted reproduction experiences; New Bloom will be hosting one of many screening that will be happening across Taiwan! Please see the FB event page here, and sign-up here. Trif Trans Bar will be providing bar service until 11PM~
2024/08/10: Travel Unbound: A Screening Series with The Kitchen Collective - As part of the Travel Unbound exhibition at Hong-Gah Museum, we will be showing Nanyang Express I: Trans-driftin and South Sea Crossing by Lin Yi-Chi, David Blandy’s Atomic Light Series, and Day By Day by Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai.
2024/08/15: The Taipei High Adminsitrative Court will rule on the aforementioned Vivi case — analysis and reporting forthcoming by yours truly.