It has been six months since trans activist Henry Edward Tse won a landmark case challenging Hong Kong’s requirement for transgender people to undergo reassignment surgery before changing the gender on their identity card.
But the marker on Tse’s card is still incorrect – it shows his assigned sex at birth, female.
The 32-year-old began his fight in 2017 when the Immigration Department rejected his application to change the gender on his identity card. In February, the top court ruled that the city’s policy breached trans people’s privacy rights and was unconstitutional.
“What I’m fighting for is to make gender recognition more humane and want to advocate for a gender recognition scheme or a gender marker scheme [in Hong Kong] that aligns with international Human Rights standards,” Tse said.
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But the activist’s battle is far from over as the government has yet to approve his application to change his identity card.
“The government is still reviewing the relevant policy in order to comply with the judgment, and they aim to complete the review within a reasonable period of time,” the Immigration Department told Young Post, though it did not disclose the number of transgender individuals that had applied to change their gender markers.
“I’m giving my 100 per cent on this issue, and it’s quite complicated because it’s not just me,” said Tse, adding that he had sent two legal letters to the government and hosted a rally in March to demand authorities abide by the legal judgment.
“When things come so slowly and you’re working in such a niche area, you really have to be mentally strong and have the stamina and perseverance to get yourself through the long battle.”
Finding a safe space
From a young age, Tse already behaved differently from what was typically expected of girls. He would cut his hair short and refused to wear dresses, and he often played sports with his friends who were mostly boys.
“I would cry if somebody put a dress on me … I just gravitated naturally around what’s stereotypically considered boyish,” recalled Tse, who studied at an evangelical girl’s school in Hong Kong.
“I was just perceived by the school management ... as a tomboy and therefore a bad student.”
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Growing up in a traditional Chinese household, Tse struggled as his family saw his rebellion against gender norms as a mental disorder.
“They tried to correct my behaviour … and they asked the psychologists whether or not this kind of gender nonconforming behaviour was abnormal,” he said, adding that his family was not convinced even when the psychologist said he was OK.
It was only when Tse went to university in the UK that he discovered the meaning of being transgender: “[It] finally gave me the explanation and a solution to the increasing internal mental suffering that I was having.”
He started hormone treatment in 2012 and received breast removal surgery the following year. While in the UK, he successfully applied to change his legal gender to male.
“When I moved to the UK, I felt like I had a safe space at school,” Tse said, explaining that he had “no trouble whatsoever when I changed my ID”.
A move towards activism
Tse’s experience in the UK influenced his activism, especially as he encountered the difficulties of being a trans man in Hong Kong after returning to the city for work in 2017.
In his home city, he faced daily struggles to access public bathrooms and was excluded from gender-segregated spaces. The situation was made worse because his identity card did not reflect his gender – which eventually drove him to challenge the city’s identity card policies.
Behind the scenes of the legal battle, Tse put in a lot of work to get support for his cause, but it was not enough.
“The help that I was receiving was just so insufficient. If you look at the trans NGO space in Hong Kong … not all of them are supportive of the lawsuit – some of them even opposed it,” he said.
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Thus, in 2020, he founded Transgender Equality Hong Kong to fill the gap in activism.
“We’re so small compared to the LGB [lesbian, gay and bisexual] community, and a lot of our concerns and needs are not really given sufficient attention like gender recognition legislation,” the founder explained.
Last November, his organisation published a multimedia project, titled Visibility vs Invisibility, which detailed the experiences of eight trans men in Hong Kong, including himself.
“By showing ourselves and telling our stories, we’re bringing the invisible community ... to the mainstream media,” Tse said, noting that the project debunked common myths about transgender people and was an effective tool in fighting transphobia.
As he waits for the government to grant his identity card change, the activist is also working on anti-discrimination legislation.
“There were some really homophobic incidents that I experienced first-hand,” Tse stressed. “It is only by legislation that we can avoid this kind of bullying because of ... sexuality and gender identity.”
