Intimate equality and transparent selves: Legalising transgender marriage in Hong Kong

Abstract

In May 2013, the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong ruled in favour of granting transgender individuals the right to marry in their post-transition gender rather than their biological sex at birth. This landmark judgment, W v Registrar of Marriages, has been considered by many as an important milestone in the LGBT rights movement in Sinophone communities. In scrutinising both the majority and dissenting statements, a critical analysis of the parameters of queerness in this ruling shows that the liberal framing of transgender marriage rights engenders what I call ‘the polite residuals of heteronormativity’, which figures the advancement of queer interest by perpetuating certain implicit forms of gender and sexual oppression. Moreover, these residuals – concealed within a broader outlook of political progressiveness – were conditional upon a rhetoric of imperial citationality that renders giant global superpowers, especially Britain and China, as the normative frames of legal authorisation.

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