Chinese transgender graduates struggle to obtain new degree certificates after surgery
- Those who have sex reassignment need to prove their qualifications match their legal identity
- Lack of guidelines makes changing the certificates difficult
Beijing Gender, a non-governmental organisation advocating for gender and sexual diversity, said some transgender people could not use their degree to find work and had to take low-paid jobs or study for another degree by enrolling under their new designation.
The group said it had helped 21 graduates to apply to have their degree certificate changed, alongside a lawyer, Yu Liying, but that most had hit barriers to achieving it and only four had so far succeeded, with the process taking several years for some of them.
Xiao Mi, Beijing Gender’s programme assistant for promoting transgender education rights, said there was a guideline for changing the sex status of someone’s legal identity if they had sex reassignment surgery, but not one for changing education records to obtain a degree certificate matching their legal identification.
“We hope the government can adapt to gender diversity and change the system,” he said.