Hong Kong Transsexual Wins Right to Marry

A Hong Kong court ruled on Monday that a transsexual woman could marry her boyfriend despite the city’s laws that only people of two opposite sexes at birth could tie the knot. The woman in her 30s, known only as “W,” successfully argued that since her post-operative gender is recognized by law, the ruling that she could not marry violated her constitutional rights. She also argued that her gender-reassignment surgery had been government-subsidized. The court said the institution of marriage had “undergone far-reaching changes” in Hong Kong, and human-rights activists said the case could result in the government being more accepting of sexual minorities.