Ms W Finally Wins The Right To Marry!

The third time was finally the charm for Ms W in her nearly three year long Hong Kong court battle to marry her boyfriend.

After losing two previous rounds in court, she finally prevailed Monday at the Court of Final Appeals level in a 4-1 decision and won a groundbreaking ruling for transpeople in Hong Kong in the process.

The Registrar of Marriages had argued that because her birth certificate couldn't be altered under Hong Kong law and said she was male, she could not wed her boyfriend.

Ms W argued the previous adverse court rulings were a violation of her constitutional rights and the Hong Kong government subsidized her SRS back in 2008. 

"It is contrary to principle to focus merely on biological features fixed at the time of birth," the court said in a written judgement by the panel of five judges.

It added that existing laws "impair the very essence of W's right to marry"

The court said the nature of marriage as a social institution had "undergone far-reaching changes" in a multi-cultural present day Hong Kong.

However, the five judge panel stopped short in this ruling of allowing same gender marriage in Hong Kong. 
Ms W according to her attorney Michael Vidler was overjoyed at the landmark ruling, which not only allows her to marry her boyfriend, but orders Hong Kong to rewrite their marriage law to allow trans women to marry cis men and trans men to marry cis women.

Vidler read a statement by the now thritysomething Ms. W to reporters in which she said,"I have lived my life as a woman and been treated as a woman in all respects except as regards my right to marriage. This decision rights that wrong."


"I am very happy that the court of appeal now recognizes my desire to marry my boyfriend one day and that that desire is no different to that of any other women who seek the same here in Hong Kong," W said.

"This is a victory for all women in Hong Kong."

Interestingly enough had Ms W lived in mainland China, she would have been able to get married.  China's marriage were changed and clarified in 2003 to allow transpeople to get married to their opposite gender partners.  Hong Kong as an autonomous Special Administrative Region is still under British law.

The landmark ruling brings Hong Kong in line on the issue of trans marriage with other Asia-Pacific Rim nations such as mainland China, Singapore, India, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.   Out of all those Asia-Pacific Rim nations, only New Zealand allows same sex couples to marry.

After Joanne Cassar's win in Malta and this one for Ms. W, can Nikki Araguz make it three in a row for international trans human rights with a trans marriage win here in Texas? 

Ms W is going to have to wait another 12 months for the landmark ruling to take effect and give the Hong Kong government time to rewrite the marriage laws, but she'll probably spend that time planning her wedding.