I have been keeping an eye on the Ms W case, in which a twentysomthing Hong Kong transwoman was battling for the right to marry her cis boyfriendMs.W has undergone SRS in a public hospital, possessed a new ID with her female gender indicated on it and school records had been reissued to record her as female.
However, the Hong Kong Government had refused to alter her birth certificate and the Registrar of Marriages also refused to allow her to marry her boyfriend.
Ms.W was rebuffed by the Hong Kong Court of First Instance and she and her attorney Michael Vidler appealed her case to the Hong Kong Court of Appeal.
It was recently heard on October 12-13 according to the Singapore based website Fridae.com in front of Honourable Justices of Appeal Robert V.P. Tang, Michael J. Hartmann and Joseph J.A. Fok.
The judgment was handed down on November 25, and it was another legal setback for Ms.W as her appeal was unanimously dismissed while using the odious Corbett vs Corbett case as the basis for doing so.
This puts Hong Kong in the position of being an island of trans legal intolerance when it comes to trans marriage issues while Asian-Pacific neighbors such as mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia along with almost all the nations in the European Union with the exception of Malta recognize the right of transwomen to marry.Ms.W is going to continue fighting for her right to marry her partner and has once again appealed her case to Hong Kong's highest court, the Court of Final Appeal.
Let's hope and pray for her sake and for those of us who fight for the human rights of transpeople Ms. W has much better luck at this level than she's had so far at the lover levels of the Hong Kong judicial system.
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