SINGAPORE, April 28 — Two British judges have blocked an effort by the UK Home Office to deport a Singaporean transgender person who is liable for reservist training, The Guardian newspaper has reported.
The British daily reported yesterday (April 27) that the Singaporean would be “granted sanctuary in the UK”, where the 33-year-old has been studying since September 2004, and added that this was the first case of its kind.
According to The Guardian, the Singaporean, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, has been accepted by the UK Home Office as a woman and possesses a Home Office ID card where the gender entry is female. But the Singaporean has not undergone a full sex change, and is said to have completed National Service as a man between December 2001 and June 2004.
Singapore’s Penal Code, however, states that a “person who has undergone a sex reassignment procedure shall be identified as being of the sex to which that person has been reassigned”.
According to The Guardian, the Singaporean said it would be “intolerable to be treated as a man” during reservist training after having lived as a woman for a decade. The newspaper also quoted the Singaporean’s lawyer as saying that if his client had been deported by the Home Office, it would be akin to “returning a woman to her home country to be punished as a man.”
TODAY has sent queries on this case to the Ministry of Defence (Mindef).
The 33-year-old’s case has been heard twice by the UK’s immigration tribunal, according to the Guardian. At the first hearing last November, the judge ruled in the Singaporean’s favour and said: “I find that the requirement of the appellant to essentially hide her gender and live as a man, even for two weeks a year, would be wholly unreasonable.”
The UK Home Office appealed, arguing that the Singaporean should be sent home and that any potential discrimination would not amount to serious harm.
A second judge who heard the case earlier this week rejected the Home Office’s appeal, and ruled in the Singaporean’s favour. — TODAY
