性轉換의 民事法上 問題

Legal Problems of Transsexuals in the Civil Law

The rights of sexual minorities draw increasingly more attentlon as solutions to issues centering around sex transformation are recently in place or sought through legalization in West-European countries, which tends to go global In tune with this, sexual minorities including transsexuals in Korea have begun to claim their rights. It can be viewed as an infringement to the disadvantaged to violate their rights guaranteed in the constitution and civil law just because transsexuals as sexual minorities are not in concert with moral perception of the majority of the society. A variety of criminal activitles such as identity certificate fabrication will increase, leading to generatng harms to the whole society when and if the change of given sex into the opposite one is not legally allowed. Therefore, as far as sex transformation operations are performed aimed at making transsexuals enjoy more humane lives and adapting themselves to every life as a responsible member of society, their rights to legal marriage including sex change in the family registration system need to be guaranteed. In particular, sex change in the family registration system is an urgent issue to be solved in terms of ensuring their human rights as social perceptions of transsexuals change. In Korea, while it is still controversial in legal cases as to whether to recognize sex change of transsexuals in the family registration system, there is no case of dealing with legal status of transsexuals resulting from marriage in the civil law, However, the number of transsexuals are in a rapid increase and issues related with civil law such as marriage of transsexuals will arise as sex change is allowed, though in a few cases, in the family registration system. Consequently, we need to seek solutions to issues resulting from sex transformation in the civil law.