Sex-change law has not kept up with the times

It is legal in Hong Kong to undergo a sex change and the gender identity team at the Queen Mary Hospital has helped dozens of people do so surgically since 1986.

For those who have changed their sex by undergoing a lengthy process of counselling and surgical operations, being able to finally live and function in the sex they desire, as opposed to the sex they got by birth, is a liberating experience.

Yet, there is a catch. While the law allows them to change the gender descriptions on their identity cards, a codeword informs those in the know of their original sex, exposing them to possible discrimination and ridicule. The law also fails to recognise their re-assigned sex by amending their birth certificates, and continues to deny them the right to marry.

That plainly makes no sense. Changing one's sex is not a decision that anyone would make lightly. It is inhumane to prevent those who have opted to take this step, which is practically irreversible, living fully in their re-assigned sex by having a conjugal relationship.

Most ludicrously, a person who has changed his or her sex could technically be arrested for entering the 'wrong' toilet of the other sex, and a woman who acquired her sex surgically cannot, in the eyes of the law, be raped.

Many countries have long allowed those who have changed their sex to re-register their sex and to get married. Following English law, however, Hong Kong has been a laggard in allowing that to happen.