Legco accused of stalling on transgender right-to-marry bill

A controversial bill to allow transgender people to marry in their chosen sex will not be passed before the Legislative Council's summer recess begins this month, 14 months after the courts ordered the government to make the change within a year.

The inaction of the government was an "insulting" stalling tactic, said solicitor Michael Vidler, who represented W, a transgender woman who challenged the government's stance that she could not marry because she had been born a man.

He said: "The CFA [Court of Final Appeal] suspended W's rights [to marry] for that length of time to allow the government to introduce comprehensive legislation within that time - not to set up a committee to undertake consultation for two years. It made this clear in the judgment."

The ruling by the Court of Final Appeal in May last year renders the current law unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable, giving W, and others who have undergone sex change operations, the right to marry from this month.

But the government only put the changes to the law to Legco in March. And there was controversy from rights activists, who criticised the fact the bill would force people to undergo sex-change operations before marrying in their chosen gender.

Security minister Lai Tung-kwok said in May that the government would begin recognising marriages involving people who have undergone sex-change surgery from this month, regardless of Legco's decision.

Last week, the Security Bureau said the question of transgender people who had not undergone surgery did not fall under the scope of the bill and that it had set up an interdepartmental working group to "follow up on various issues left open … in the judgment on the W case".