Henry Tse

Henry Tse is known as an activist of transgender rights. He has played a central role in raising awareness of trans issues by generously, and fearlessly, sharing his story about the struggles and discrimination he faces as a trans man.

In 2020, after having served the trans community at a local transgender NGO for a year, Henry established Transgender Equality Hong Kong. TEHK is an NGO dedicated to transparency, sustainability, intersectional justice, and ensuring that Hong Kong complies with international standards on trans rights and human rights. TEHK is non-partisan and has no affiliation to corporations. It is dedicated to serving the trans and LGB+ community, and aims to fill the knowledge gap in the local LGBT community with regard to policy and law advocacy in Hong Kong.

Henry is perhaps most well-known to us for challenging the government’s requirement for full sex reassignment surgery to change the gender marker on a person’s ID card. He filed the judicial review in 2017, and finally won his case in 2023. Thanks in large part to his efforts, the Court of Final Appeal declared earlier this year that ID cards can reflect our true gender identity without the need for a person to undergo full surgery.  It was a long and arduous journey, but Henry’s victory can be summed up by a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

In recognition for his efforts, Henry has been named a Community Business Transgender Inclusion Champion, and was recently featured as a Next Generation Leader in Time Magazine and an Honoree of the Tatler Gen.T cohort. He also received the Pam Baker Human Rights Scholarship to study human rights law at the University of Hong Kong.

Henry has achieved much, and it is clear that he is still on an upward trajectory in promoting trans equality in Hong Kong and beyond.

Please join us in congratulating Henry Tse, the recipient of the 2023 HKLGFF Prism Award.