How Transgender People Lives Without the Gender Recognition Act in Hong Kong

7 Dec, 2020

Settling down in the Kong Ha Au campsite, Terry Hui Wai-fung went into a female toilet in a pink T-shirt and pants. Her friend told her that a woman was mad at her when she got back to the site.

“The woman told me that a man in a pink shirt went into a female toilet, and stood up for peeing,” said Hui’s friend. “She said that was you.”

Later on, the woman called the in-charge government officers to fix the embarrassment.

“Why didn’t she just ask me directly? Look, it is a very serious issue that only the police could fix it, tell her to call the police, please,” said Hui, a transgender person who already finished her sex reassignment surgery and owned a female identity card, was fearless about the situation which she had heard and experienced for so many time.

“I have no right to force her to admit my new gender, but I could accuse the woman of defamatory,” said Hui. “I already did my surgery, it makes no sense that I had to open the door, stand up, and pee.”

Without legislation of the Gender Recognition Act in Hong Kong, transgender people fell into law loopholes and plagued by discrimination when their desired genders could not be legally recognized by society.

Embarrassments also plagued Hui when she wanted to try underwear in a fitting room of a boutique, 6ixty8ight, which has 34 chain stores in Hong Kong.

“I took a sports bra to a fitting room as the way I did before, but I was rejected by the staff,” said Hui, “they told me to buy try them at home, and I can take it back for refunding if it is not fit.”

But later on, Hui saw another female customer took the same one into the fitting room.

Hui complained the company to the Equal Opportunities Commission regarding a breach of the Disability Discrimination Ordinance from which the transgender people protected in September, and he received informal feedback in November.

“They said that the company agrees to say sorry to me, but they would not publish a formal statement to apologize publicly,” said Hui. “I rejected the offer because it is meaningless to me. If Hong Kong legislated the GRA, things could have been much more clearer.”

The Generation Recognition Act was set out in the U.K. in 2004, which regulated that trans people could change their birth gender by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate from medical diagnosis and reports, may or without the sex reassignment surgery.

The improvement of the GRC was still underway in England and Wales after the ministers ruled out on online application process and reduced the payment fee.

In Hong Kong, the public consultation of GRA was launched in 2017 after the lawsuit of a transgender woman W’s case in 2013.

The Court of Final Appeal stated that the government should consider how to address problems facing trans people in all areas of law by drawing reference to overseas like the U.K. in W’s case who had undergone full SRS should be entitled to marry a person of the sex opposite to their reassigned gender.

“Legislating the GRA is too dangerous in Hong Kong,” said Kwan Kai-man, the president of the Hong Kong Sex Culture Society. “It is not only the trans people matters but also every citizen's in the society.”

“Actually I don’t mind if one of my friends asked me to call him a woman when he is physically a man,” said Kwan, who said that the GRA will have a great impact on woman and man, sexual harassment and crimes, and gender perception of children when identity recognition of trans people went officially.

Target Corp., an American retail corporation, spend $20 million to add a private toilet in 2016, after customer protests of its policy allowing transgender people to use whichever they want regarding their gender identity.

Kwan thought Hong Kong citizens might feel uncomfortable either if the GRA passed with a self-declaration model, which means people can change their gender officially without any medical supports or adopting SFS.

“The third gender culture is unstoppably changing,” said Kwan, “but I think this is a gray area for citizens to figure it out through discussions, but not immediate legislation.”

But after the public consultation of the GRA finished at the end of 2017, the inter-departmental working group had not launched any reports or actions yet. The working group had not given any replies on it before the deadline of the article published.

Starting from the year of the consultation, according to the Hospital Authority, the number of patients who diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorders continuously increased from around 770 in 2017 to 960 in 2019, while the total number of patients who had received SRS is only around seven to 10 between these three years.

“There is a slang in the local transgender community called ‘passed’,” said Yannes, a transgender woman who completed her surgery in 2014 secretly behind her parents. “If no one reveals that you are a trans people when you go on the street, you are ‘passed’.”

It is an essential and simple need for human beings, but not Yannes. “Before I did my surgery, I tried lots of methods, such as stop drinking water before I hanged out with friends, to avoid myself go to toilets.”

The real-life experience was one of the pre-surgery processes. The recognition letter was the safeguard for them in case they were in trouble during the process.

But Yannes said that once an ‘unpassed’ transgender woman got into a female toilet, especially when she had not done surgery yet, might easily get into embarrassment or even criminal cases because their genders had not been legally recognized.

“It is so hard to cope with the plights by appealing every case in court by ourselves,” said Yannes. “The legislation by the government would have been an all-around and clear way to solve the uncertainty.”