[LETTERS to the editor]The courts should not decide gender

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[LETTERS to the editor]The courts should not decide gender

Reading articles regarding the Supreme Court’s decision that Koreans who have undergone a surgical gender change have the right to change their family registration to reflect their new sex, I was astonished to find that all the articles I read welcomed the decision. According to them, our society has become mature enough to accept diverse social phenomena and values and now is the time to embrace social minorities, with which I partly agree. Everything in the world seems relative; something that sounds terrific to one might sound horrible to another. There are, however, things which should never change.
Your 5-year-old son wants to drown a kitten. What would you do? Let him kill the poor animal? Absolutely not. Now, your 7-year-old daughter wants to kiss and sleep together with a girl she met at kindergarten. Would you let her do as she wishes? You think they can kiss out of curiosity but forbid them to sleep together. Several years later, your son who has grown up watching his girl-loving older sister wants to avoid enlisting by removing his genitals and becoming a woman. What would you do? “No” leads to bad; “Yes” leads to worse.
Children learn from adults. That’s what I’ve learned teaching various age groups for five years. Every member of society has a responsibility to teach or, at least, show children what is right. Some parents’ misleading has brought about many cases of homosexuality. We need to embrace transsexuals, sharing their tears, that’s true. However, I don’t think it’s right for a court of law to decide who’s male and who’s female. It’s not their job. There are two genders; male and female. That’s it. That’s what we’ve learned from our parents, nature and the textbooks. We can’t shake the fundamentals. If you do, you will ruin everything on top of them.


by Samuel J. Hahn
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