Human Rights Commission: “It is discriminatory if high school seniors who consider themselves male are assigned a female student room at a retreat.”

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRC) has ruled that the school’s decision to tell a first-year high school student, who is biologically female but identifies as male, to ‘use the female student’s room at a retreat’ was an act of discrimination.

The Human Rights Commission announced on the 19th that it had recommended to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to “identify the difficulties of sexual minority students and prepare an inclusive education policy that guarantees diversity.”

Mr. A, who attends a high school in Seoul, informed his homeroom teacher that he was transgender after enrolling in March last year, when he was a freshman. The Human Rights Commission defined a transgender person as ‘a person whose gender they were assigned at birth is different from the gender they recognized and identified with as they grew up.’ Mr. A claimed that his classmates and friends knew him as a male and that he also participated in sports activities with male students.

Mr. A said to his homeroom teacher, “I want to use the boys’ room,” in relation to a 3-day, 2-night retreat in which all first-year students participated in May of last year. Then the homeroom teacher said, “You cannot participate in the retreat unless you are using the female student’s room.” The teacher in charge of the retreat and the vice principal gave the same answer. Mr. A did not attend the retreat.

The school refuted the Human Rights Commission’s investigation, saying that the claim that students in the same class perceived Mr. A’s gender as male was groundless. It was based on the fact that a student in another class said, “(Mr. A) is a woman, so why are you pretending to be a man?”

In addition, it was stated that mixed sex of men and women was not possible at the retreat, and that asking teenagers with unclear gender identity to sleep together was a violation of the rights of other students. The reason was also given that even if Mr. A claims to be a man, sexual violence and sexual harassment may occur at the retreat.

According to the school, Mr. A requested the use of a single room after being denied the ‘use of the boys’ room.’ The school said that it could help Mr. A in that he did not want to reveal his gender, but that it was difficult to explain to other students the reason for using solitary confinement. In addition, the school inquired several times about Mr. A’s request from the Office of Education and the Ministry of Education, but did not receive any relevant guidance. The Office of Education simply said, “There are no similar cases, so handle the matter within the bounds of the law.”

The Human Rights Commission determined that the school did not guarantee equal opportunities for participation in educational activities by effectively forcing Mr. A to use facilities of a gender different from the gender he recognized. However, in a situation where specific guidelines were lacking, it would have been difficult for schools to make independent judgments about transgender students.

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