Tag: mandatory service

Here I was thinking that transgender people wanted to have their junk cut off?:

A South Korean transgender woman Wednesday lodged a human rights complaint against the military for forcing her to undergo genital surgery in order to be exempted from military duty.

The 22-year-old trans woman went through a mandatory medical checkup for the draft in 2012. She submitted a medical report that confirms a “crisis in sexual identity” and documents on her cross-sex hormone therapy to apply for a military exemption.

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA), however, rejected it, saying she would need to present convincing evidence that she would never be able to become a man again.

She had no choice but to undergo an orchiectomy and was exempted from the military duty in October 2013.

“The MMA demanded her to come up with an irreversible proof, obviously referring to the surgical removal of testicles,” Yun Da-rim, secretary general of the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, told the Korea Observer.

“Those who receive military medical checkups are in their early 20s and many of them simply cannot afford to have genital surgery. Can you imagine how much an ordeal a transgender woman has to suffer to live with male conscripts?”

Yun argued that trans women should be exempted from their compulsory military duty without undergoing genital surgery as no measures have been taken to protect the rights of sexual minorities in the barracks.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but if you still have your male body parts than you are a male and should do your mandatory military service like every other male.  Letting transgender people dodge mandatory service without the surgery would lead to non-transgender people claiming they are transgender to avoid mandatory service as well.  The ROK military needs a standard and clearing have male body parts is a pretty clear standard.

This is probably the first time I have heard of Koreans unhappy with one of its national teams winning a gold medal:

The South Korean baseball team Sunday clinched the gold at the Incheon Asian Games, but a lot of people here seem to have more reasons to mock their achievement than celebrate or be proud of it.

They think players will enjoy greater benefits than they deserve — exemption from the country’s mandatory two years of military service. Ironically, their gold has also led to fierce discussion about abolishing such rewards to athletes.

“I wish they lost the game,” 29-year-old baseball fan Park Tae-yang said. “I do not understand why Korea, in the 21st century, still has to give military exemption for athletes on the grounds that they help promote the country.”

Such harsh feelings against the national team are also based on the fact that South Korea is the only country that sent professional baseball players, who appeared desperate for a military exemption, and let them compete against teams consisting mostly of amateur players.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but it does seem kind unfair to all the other males in Korea that they have to do their mandatory service obligation while these professional athletes now will get out of it because they blew out a bunch of Asian amateur baseball teams.