Transsexual woman wins right to wed, rewriting Hong Kong's definition of marriage
A transsexual woman won her appeal at the top court over the right to marry a man, rewriting the century-old definition of marriage in Hong Kong.
The Court of Final Appeal, ruling 4-1 on Monday morning, holds that it is contrary to principle to focus merely on biological features fixed at the time of birth and regarded as immutable.
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The judgment states that whether a consensus regarding a transsexuals right to marry exists among the people of Hong Kong is not a relevant consideration, because reliance on the absence of a majority consensus as a reason for rejecting a minoritys claim is inimical in principle to fundamental rights.
"We think it would be quite wrong to exclude such a transsexual person from the right to marry in her acquired gender by characterising her as a 'pseudo-type of woman'," said the majority judgment co-written by Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li and Permanent Judge Robert Ribeiro.
Interesting third paragraph in the excerpt above, when considered in relation to our current struggle for marriage equality in the US.