W deserves same rights as any woman
In denying W the right to marry her boyfriend, the government shows sad ignorance of the nature of her situation, and the consequences of its policy ('I want to marry my boyfriend, says woman who was a man', August 8). Worldwide, laws increasingly recognise that women such as W are female and deserve the respect, equality and dignity of being treated thus. Scientific research now indicates that women such as W may have biologically female brains, and that their deeply-felt need to live as female may be a response to a biological imperative.
Nobody undergoes deeply invasive and irreversible surgical procedures just because they have chosen a particular lifestyle. Psychotherapy aimed at removing W's feelings would inevitably fail. Surgery is a medical necessity for people like W. International health organisations realise all this. The Hospital Authority, by providing surgery at public expense, appears to recognise it, too.
W simply seeks the right that any heterosexual woman has. The right to marry heterosexually is nowadays extended to women like W in traditionally conservative Singapore and on the mainland and many other countries. Cruelly, and ironically in view of the government's apparent fear of opening the door on same-sex marriage, W currently only has the right to marry another woman.
The challenge for the judge is whether to bring to Hong Kong a modern informed legal understanding on what makes a woman a woman, or to sustain the anachronistic and prejudiced thinking of those who would argue, against all reasonable evidence, that she is simply a man seeking the right to a same-sex marriage. Anyone who has met W knows what an absurdity this would be.
Sam Winter, member of the board of directors, World Professional Association for Transgender Health
Engineers run riot
