The issue of transgender rights is approaching a watershed moment in Hong Kong. In the High Court, three transgender men are fighting for their right to be legally recognised, as the government faces growing pressure from the Equal Opportunities Commission to drop the requirement for sex reassignment surgery to legally change one’s gender.

But lawyers, activists and members of the transgender community insist there is still a long way to go, despite the 2013 Court of Final Appeal ruling which granted a transgender woman, W, the right to marry her boyfriend – a landmark move for Hong Kong LGBT rights at the time.

Since then, two female transgender tourists have been refused entry at the airport and transgender women have been found to be cruelly detained in male prisons as recently as 2016.

Alarming mental health statistics involving this minority group also echo the struggles they face. Almost two thirds of transgender people in Hong Kong have previously contemplated suicide, while nearly a fifth of them had attempted suicide, according to a 2016 survey conducted by academics such as Dr Suen Yiu-tung of Chinese University’s gender studies programme. Read more via South China Morning Post