TRANSSEXUAL MARRIAGE...

Government lawyers have told a Hong Kong court that the legislature, not the courts, should decide if a transsexual can marry her boyfriend in the first such legal case in the Chinese city.

The male-to-female transsexual, who is in her 20s and known only as "W" under anonymity rules, took the government to court over a law that she alleged violated her constitutional right to marry her boyfriend.

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

The woman, who is among a small number of people who have undergone sex change surgery in Hong Kong, had the gender reflected on her identity card.

The Marriage Ordinance says marriage can only be a union between a man and a woman.

Monica Carss-Frisk, barrister for the government, on Tuesday said the existing law did not accommodate transgender marriage.

"If there is a desire to change attitude, then the legislature can seek to do that," she told the Court of First Instance.

"What the court is doing here is to simply look at what the law is at the moment."

Carss-Frisk warned that any judicial attempt to broaden or re-interpret the legal definition of "man" and "woman" would create uncertainties in the law.

Citing cases from other common law jurisdictions including England, Australia, and the US, the lawyer said some courts held different views on whether transsexuals should only win the right to marry after their operation.

Carss-Frisk added that changing the current legislation could have a far-reaching impact on laws surrounding succession and domestic violence, and evidence rules, which prohibit the spouse of a defendant from being compelled to give evidence under certain circumstances.

Traditionally, Asian societies have lagged Western nations' attitudes toward homosexuals and transgendered people.

But mainland China, Singapore,Malaysia and Japan allow transsexual people to marry the opposite sex in their new gender.

It’s become one of the most prominent acts of civil disobedience in recent times. San Francisco’s mayor this month ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Thousands flocked to city hall to get married.
Most people view this as the first time in U.S. history that same-sex couples could enjoy the same legal rights as a married man and woman. But for some time now, hundreds of same-sex couples across the country have been living as married couples under the law. They are couples who married as man and woman and later, one spouse underwent a gender change.

Speak with one of those couples: Cindy and Miriam Huebscher-Scott. They are a married couple from the midwest. They married as husband and wife, then Roger became Cindy and Miriam chose to stay with him. They are the founders of an internet support group for the spouses and partners of transsexuals.