Hong Kong transgender people face humiliation from law enforcement officers, says study

The Equal Opportunities Commission is urging law enforcement agencies to ensure officers treat transgender people with respect as pressure groups say encounters with officers often end up becoming "humiliating" experiences.

A survey funded by the commission found that transgender people encountered unpleasant incidents including receiving remarks such as "you do look like a woman", strip searches by officers of a different gender and forced shaving upon entering detention centres.

Transgender interviewees discussed encounters with the police, correctional services and immigration officers.

Conducted by the Transgender Resource Centre from July to November last year, some of the 17 transgender people interviewed in the study said officers even made requests for sex back in the early 1990s, and some transgender people complied in exchange for snacks or to avoid trouble.

The government currently does not allow anyone to change the sex they were registered in at birth unless the individuals concerned has undergone a full sex-change operation.

This policy caused Kaspar Wan, a transgender man who has yet to undergo the final step in sex-change surgery, unwanted trouble when he travelled to South Korea, because the gender on his identity card did not match his declared gender.