Hong Kong’s landmark transgender ruling: will the rest of Asia now follow suit?

Mainland China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan all require trans people to undergo reassignment surgery to have their gender identity recognised

So did Hong Kong, until a recent ruling that advocates hope will influence regional debate on trans people’s rights – including in Thailand

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Henry Edward Tse, one of two litigants in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal’s ruling on transgender rights, holds a decoration with the Chinese characters for ‘victory’ on February 6. Photo: SCMP/Edmond So

Published: 8:30am, 19 Feb 2023Updated: 11:33pm, 20 Apr 2023

LGBTQ advocates are hopeful that a landmark court ruling on transgender rights in Hong Kong earlier this month will create a legal ripple effect granting greater official recognition for trans people living elsewhere in Asia.

Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal ruled on February 6 that it breached transgender people’s rights for the government to require them to undergo full sex reassignment surgery as a precondition for using their preferred gender on their identity cards.

A similar surgery requirement is also imposed by authorities in mainland China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

Taiwan has the requirement too, but judges there have since 2019 been granting ad hoc exemptions to it, leading a lower court judge to file a case with the self-ruled island’s Constitutional Court to clear up the legal uncertainty.

LGBTQ people take part in the Taipei Pride parade in 2019. A Taiwan court has cited a recent Hong Kong ruling on transgender people’s rights regarding reassignment surgery. Photo: EPA-EFE

That case was ultimately rejected on a technicality – it needed to have been filed by an ordinary citizen – but one of the presiding judges cited the Hong Kong court’s earlier decision as a reason for the constitutionality of a surgery requirement being “highly questionable”.

“The views of Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal deserve recognition,” Jan Sheng-lin wrote in his judgment on February 10, further urging Taiwanese authorities to bear the case in mind so that they can “wholeheartedly sympathise with the situation faced by transgender people in order to create a more friendly and harmonious society”.

Hong Kong’s landmark transgender ruling: will the rest of Asia now follow suit?

Mainland China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan all require trans people to undergo reassignment surgery to have their gender identity recognised So did Hong Kong, until a recent ruling that advocates hope will influence regional debate on trans people’s rights – including in Thailand

Mainland China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan all require trans people to undergo reassignment surgery to have their gender identity recognised

So did Hong Kong, until a recent ruling that advocates hope will influence regional debate on trans people’s rights – including in Thailand