The High Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of transgender individuals' rights to access public toilets matching their identity, after an applicant -- who was born a woman and identifies as a man -- lodged a judicial review over the government's regulations criminalizing the use of bathrooms designated for the opposite sex.
The applicant, K, argued the related regulations unfairly target their community and contravene the right to equality/freedom from discrimination under Article 25 of the Basic Law as well as the Hong Kong Bills of Rights.
K was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2017 and was undergoing the process of "real life experience." He was issued a "Gender Identity Letter" by the doctors to certify that he is to be treated as a male in social contexts and that using gender-specific facilities is an important part of the treatment and transition.
K launched a legal challenge in 2022, arguing that his constitutional rights were infringed by the prohibition against him using public toilets allocated for men, the court heard.
He is asking for a "remedial" construction of the terms "male" and "female" to pre-operative transgender people who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have a medical need to undergo the process of living in their identified gender.
High Court Judge Russell Coleman ruled in favor of K over the case, ordering the government to strike down regulations criminalizing the use of bathrooms designated for the opposite sex.
Coleman added that he does not think "there can be a remedial interpretation," while permitting the government for a period of 12 months to consider whether it wishes to implement a way to deal with the contravention.
"I leave it to the government to consider and implement the appropriate way to resolve the contravention," the judgment wrote. "This is a matter of the line-drawing, which seems to me to be a question for the government or legislature to address."
The ruling marks another step forward in recognizing the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the city. In recent years, the government has revised policies following activists' wins in legal challenges.
In 2023, Hong Kong's top court ruled that full sex reassignment surgery should not be a prerequisite for transgender people to have their gender changed on their official identity cards.
The next year, the government revised its policy to allow people who have not completed full gender-affirmation surgery to change their genders on ID cards as long as they fulfill certain conditions.
(Anson Luk and AP)
