Daily Lessons from Life 05 October 2010 - HK court rules against transsexual's marriage bid

"HK court rules against transsexual's marriage bid - Tue, Oct 05, 2010 AFP

HONG KONG, Oct 5, 2010 (AFP) - A transsexual who sued Hong Kong's government in an unprecedented bid to marry in her new gender lost her case Tuesday, with a judge arguing that it was not an issue for the courts to decide.

The Chinese woman, who is in her 20s and known only as 'W' under anonymity rules, is one of a few people to have undergone sex change surgery in a Hong Kong public hospital, and had her gender altered on her identity card.

But the city's Registrar of Marriages ruled last year that she could not marry her boyfriend because her birth certificate - which cannot be changed under Hong Kong law - says that she is still a man.

Interestingly the lawyer representing the transsexual said that mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan already allowed transsexual to marry!"

An interesting case of the law not catching up with technology and with the wishes of the transsexual?

Lessons for me are:

1. a weird situation where the motherland already allowed transsexual to marry while the Hong Kong SAR's law still does not. I guessed you cannot say that the mainland China master restrict the legislative right of the Hong Kong SAR government! It is unique and yet it is reasonable to expect Hong Kong SAR's law to change to be in line with that of the motherland since it is a reasonable practice and relate to personal freedom!;

2. my stand on homosexual and lesbian union is that it is not natural. If the parties to the union wanted to get married to each other, it is their freedom of choice. At the same time, I cannot say that it is how nature intended it to be;

3. with this transsexual situation, my position is that since the surgery is a success and the transsexual had become a person of the other gender, there is really nothing unnatural for the person to want to get marry to a human being that is of the opposite gender. If I were the Judge, I would have allowed it since Judges are given the authority to interpret the law! :-)

May she find happiness nonetheless in marrying her man legal or otherwise. Honestly, it is an irony that she bothered to ask for the legal marriage when so many non-transsexual who co-habitat do not even bothered with registering their union! Confused?