Seoul – A transgender South Korean soldier who was forcibly discharged from the army after sex reassignment surgery has been found dead, police said, prompting anger Thursday and calls for legal reforms.Firefighters found Byun Hee-soo in her home in Cheongju after a mental health counselor called emergency services to report that she had not been heard from for several days, the Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korea remains deeply conservative about matters of sexual identity and is less tolerant of LGBTQ rights than some other parts of Asia, with many gay and transgender Koreans living largely under the radar.Byun, formerly a staff sergeant in her 20s, enlisted voluntarily in 2017, and went on to have sex reassignment surgery in 2019 in.