April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Rethinking Health: Oppression against a Transwoman in the South Korean Military
Last year, we globally observe extreme social and health inequality in multiple margins. This study focuses on the transgender community in South Korea. Lee et al. (2020) found significantly poor health among the transgender population in South Korea, including depression and suicidal ideation, from the large-scale survey. This study examines how a trans woman faces structural exclusion from heteronormative institutions and employment, which consequently leads to poor health and death. This research contributes to the call for research on transgender health in the non-global North including east Asia (Connell, 2021), and the theme of the KCHC 2022 conference regarding redefining health and wellbeing for better health communication among the marginalized population. This study conducted a textual analysis on a recent case of South Korea’s first openly transgender soldier Byun Hee-soo. SSG Byeon was a staff soldier who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria during military service. After consulting with a doctor at Korean Armed Forces Capital Hospital, she got gender affirmation surgery in Thailand. She believed she would be able to come back to work due to supporting from her bosses in Army, her mental and physical health got much better after surgery. Consequently, she was expelled from Army due to loss of male genitalia, interpreting as she was judged as mentally and physically unhealthy and disabled. After one year of discharge, she has been found dead at home. On October 7, 2021, the court ruled the discharge was unlawful. Data for this study include Byeon’s and friends’ voices from a Korean TV documentary “PD note,” an episode of “Byeon Hee-soo, misunderstanding of her,” which is only one full 60 minute documentary including interviews with her when she lived. I chose this episode in order to value marginalized voices to ask a definition of health and well-being as a human being and find a better theorization of inclusive health (Dutta, 2007). I used Foucault’s ‘medical gaze’ which is “the process of medical professionals approach, diagnose, and judge bodies with uncontested authority in ways that frame one’s body as either healthy or morbid”—to interpret how prevalent these concepts in the military, legal, and social system (Davis et al., 2006, p. 493; Foucault, 1973). With an understanding of historical and cultural contexts, this research found there were prevalent medical gaze norms in the legal and military systems. I argue not only health professionals have a medical gaze but also cis people who have the power to create and regulate rules of institutions do perform medical gaze in their work. Therefore, trans bodies are considered as ‘morbidities’ and abnormal in need of corrective treatments and the disabled body. Though Korea’s military is mandatory for men, to serve in the military requires a cis-male-abled body as a ‘healthy’ body. The current law and norms are explicating ‘which body’ is ‘healthy’ for the nation while pathologizing which body does not. The understanding of health differs transpeople’s health in reality. The redefined 'health' and 'well-being' and implications are discussed for the trans population.