On Wednesday, July 23, a Hong Kong court ruled in favour of trans people using bathrooms that align with their preferred gender. 

K, a transgender man, challenged a set of Public Convenience Regulations with the intent to amend them so that people undergoing Real Life Experience treatment with medical supervision can use the bathroom corresponding to their chosen gender. K challenged the regulations on the grounds that they contradicted the region’s constitution, arguing that all residents should be treated equally. 

The judge, Russell Coleman, upheld K’s argument; however, he refused to strike down the regulations for a year. He stated that the reasoning for this decision was to give the government time to decide how to implement a distinction between “a female person” and a “male person”, according to Reuters. 

“Drawing the line of a person’s biological sex at birth (creates) a disproportionate and unnecessary intrusion into the privacy and equality rights,” wrote Coleman in his judgment. 

The Environment and Ecology Bureau has begun to study the judgment and will be consulting the Justice Department on how the ruling should be properly carried out. 

This ruling is one of a few legal wins over the past few years for the transgender community in Hong Kong. 

A court judgment in February 2023 allowed trans people to change gender on their identity cards as long as they had undergone full gender reassignment surgery. A few months later, an adjustment was made to this ruling, allowing residents to change their gender markers without undergoing full reassignment surgery. From that point, trans men only had to undergo top surgery, while trans women had to undergo bottom surgery, according to AP News. Along with this, residents changing their gender marker needed to meet a list of criteria. Still, this was a big step towards trans equality within Hong Kong.