Intimate equality and transparent selves: Legalising transgender marriage in Hong Kong. Issue 2 (3rd April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chiang, Howard
• Is Part Of: Culture, theory and critique. Volume 58:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 166
• Page End: 181
• Publication Date: 2017-04-03
• Subjects: Humanities -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; Civilisation moderne et contemporaine -- Périodiques; Culture -- Périodiques; 306
• DOI: 10.1080/14735784.2016.1257357
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1473-5784

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In May 2013, the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong ruled in favour of granting transgender individuals the right to marry in their post-transition gender rather than their biological sex at birth. This landmark judgment, W v Registrar of Marriages, has been considered by many as an important milestone in the LGBT rights movement in Sinophone communities. In scrutinising both the majority and dissenting statements, a critical analysis of the parameters of queerness in this ruling shows that the liberal framing of transgender marriage rights engenders what I call 'the polite residuals of heteronormativity', which figures the advancement of queer interest by perpetuating certain implicit forms of gender and sexual oppression. Moreover, these residuals – concealed within a broader outlook of political progressiveness – were conditional upon a rhetoric of imperial citationality that renders giant global superpowers, especially Britain and China, as the normative frames of legal authorisation.