Overview

• A transgender man known as K filed a challenge in 2022 seeking to allow individuals undergoing real-life experience treatment to use public toilets that align with their gender identity.
• The court ruled that criminalising use of opposite-sex public restrooms based on sex assigned at birth violates equality and privacy protections in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.
• Judge Russell Coleman stayed his decision for 12 months to give the government or legislature time to determine how to redraw regulations on public conveniences.
• Under current rules only children under five accompanied by an opposite-sex adult may enter an opposite-sex public restroom and violators face fines of up to HK$2,000.
• The ruling builds on a 2023 Court of Final Appeal decision and an April 2024 policy easing gender marker changes on ID cards, and officials have not yet commented.