When a romantic relationship secured by oaths in the marriage has come to an end, not many couples dealing with divorce could meet an agreement peacefully. Many people have considered bringing in preventive measures such as a family trust or a pre-nuptial agreement in hope of simplifying matrimonial proceedings and protecting certain individual assets.

Traditionally, society has labelled gender as either “female” or “male”, which is assigned when a person is born. While some individuals identify themselves as “female” and some “male”, it is not uncommon where people identify themselves as a gender which is different to what they were born with. Other than identifying as “non-binary”, such change is defined as “transsexuality”. For transgender individuals, it could be unclear what the criteria are when it comes to determining the “legal gender” of a person for the purposes of marriage and what steps must be taken to enter into a legally recognised marriage under the current matrimonial laws. This essay will compare and contrast the legal status of transgender marriage across Hong Kong and other common law jurisdictions, in particular the UK, the US and Australia.