Time For Change: A Call For The Legal Recognition of Transsexual and Other Transgender Persons in Hong Kong

Abstract

This is the second of two articles the author the law relating persons in Hong Kong. The first article, which appeared Volume 34(2) (2004) of this journal, examined in detail the current administrative and legal status of Hong Kong's transgender persons. This article considers how the present, unsatisfactory situation could be challenged through the courts or changed legislative reform. First, the article examines the potential of judicial review proceedings under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance and the Basic Law against the Hong Kong authorities’ refusal to allow transgender persons to marry in their chosen gender or to amend their birth certificates. This section draws heavily on international and comparative case law, and in particular the landmark decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Goodwin v United Kingdom and I v United Kingdom (2002) .Concluding that there is a strong case to be argued under the right to marry, but that litigation is unlikely provide a comprehensive solution to the problems faced by Hong Kong's transgender persons, the article then calls for full legal recognition to be granted to them through legislative means, and considers which of several models (focusing on Singapore, Japan and the United Kingdom) might suitable for Hong Kong.