Government lawyers have told a Hong Kong court that the legislature, not the courts, should decide if a transsexual can marry her boyfriend in the first such legal case in the Chinese city.

The male-to-female transsexual, who is in her 20s and known only as "W" under anonymity rules, took the government to court over a law that she alleged violated her constitutional right to marry her boyfriend. The woman, who is among a small number of people who have undergone sex change surgery in Hong Kong, had the gender reflected on her identity card. 

But the city's Registrar of Marriages ruled last year that she could not marry her boyfriend because her birth certificate -- which could not be changed under Hong Kong law -- says that she is still a man. The Marriage Ordinance says marriage can only be a union between a man and a woman.

Monica Carss-Frisk, barrister for the government, on Tuesday said the existing law did not accommodate transgender marriage.

"If there is a desire to change attitude, then the legislature can seek to do that," she told the Court of First Instance.

"What the court is doing here is to simply look at what the law is at the moment."

Full Story at source: http://news.theage.com.au