Before Her Sudden Death, She Just Wanted To Live as a Woman and Soldier

South Korea’s first transgender soldier was found dead at her home on Wednesday, about one year after she was expelled from the Korean army for undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

Police told VICE World News that there was no indication that the former staff sergeant, 23-year-old Byun Hee-soo, was murdered and they found no suicide note at her apartment in the central city of Cheongju. Police said Byun could have died several days ago and they were investigating it.

Byun enlisted voluntarily in 2017 and underwent gender confirmation surgery in late 2019 in Thailand.

She had wanted to continue serving in the military but was forcibly discharged after the Korean army determined last year that her loss of male genitals amounted to a mental and physical disability.

“Regardless of my gender identity, I want to show everyone that I can be one of the great soldiers defending this country,” Byun said, weeping, in a press conference after her Jan. 2020 dismissal.

Byun said in the conference she endured the difficulties caused by “gender dysphoria and depression” by holding on to her childhood dream of becoming a soldier “dedicated to the country.”

Rights advocates have blamed the military’s action for causing her death.

“I’m enraged at the army’s actions that forced out a person who wanted to dedicate her life to her work as other ordinary people do,” a rights advocate at Transgender Liberation Front who goes by Kkokko told VICE World News.

“In order for LGBTQ people to live a normal and peaceful life, I hope that politicians will eagerly discuss the legislation of the comprehensive anti-discrimination law,” the campaigner said.

The anti-discrimination bill seeks to ban all discrimination based on gender, disability, age, language, country of origin, and sexual orientation but it has stalled in parliament. Opponents of the bill said it could curtail liberty and freedom.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said, “We express condolences over the regrettable death.”

The army’s decision to dismiss Byun had been criticized by rights advocates in and outside South Korea.

In July, United Nations human rights officials told the South Korean government that Byun’s dismissal “would violate the right to work and the prohibition of discrimination based on gender identity under international human rights law.”

In December, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea said the army’s move “had no legal grounds.”

Byun’s death followed that of another transgender person last week. Kim Ki-hong, the 38-year-old co-head of Jeju Queer Culture Festival, was found dead at her home on Feb. 24. She expressed feelings of isolation before her death.

Byun Jae-won (unrelated to the former soldier), a policy researcher and an advocate for LGBTQ people, told VICE World News that the government and parliament have to answer for the deaths.

“I don’t think that the deaths were a coincidence. The anti-discrimination law has to be enacted as soon as possible in order to prevent the social disaster,” he said.

South Korea is largely unfriendly to LGBTQ people, according to Korean Society of Law and Policy on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which ranks the country only slightly above Russia in terms of respecting the rights of sexual minorities. 

Discrimination against LGBTQ people is especially prevalent in the military, right watchdogs including Amnesty International have said. 

In 2017, the Korean military punished more than 20 soldiers for violating an act that prohibits sex between men after the unprecedented scale of the search.

Lim Tae-hoon, director of the Military Human Rights Center of Korea, who assisted Byun, said, “We remember Sergeant Byun who laughed out saying that she would eliminate discrimination against minorities in the military.” 

“We hope that we can send her the warm greetings from those who dream of a world without discrimination and hatred.”

Hyeong Yun contributed reporting.

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