Lesbian Couple Wins Landmark Parental Rights Case In Hong Kong

September 10, 2025 Dan Tracer

A judge ruled that both women must be recognized as parents of their son, calling the government’s exclusion harmful to the child’s dignity and rights.

Featured image: VERNON YUEN/AFP via Getty Images

A Hong Kong court has ruled that a lesbian couple must be legally recognized as the parents of their young son, a decision seen as a breakthrough for LGBTQ+ families in the city.

The case centers on a married couple identified as “B” and “R,” who underwent reciprocal in vitro fertilization in South Africa in 2020. R’s egg was fertilized with donor sperm, and the embryo was transferred to B, who carried the pregnancy. Their son, identified as “K,” was born in Hong Kong in 2021, but the birth registry listed only B as his parent.

The omission left R, the boy’s genetic mother, without any legal recognition. That absence, Judge Russell Coleman said in his ruling on Tuesday, undermined the child’s rights and dignity.

The judge went further, criticizing earlier legal reasoning that had declared R a “parent at common law” without giving her actual rights. “It is my view that the declaration granted in the [2023 ruling] was certainly to no practical effect (for any legal purpose), and was as a result probably simply wrong,” he stated.

The judgment also touched on how the lack of recognition could delay urgent decisions, such as medical care, with “irreversible prejudicial consequences for K.”

Law firm Patricia Ho & Associates, which represents the couple, welcomed the decision. In a statement on LinkedIn, it said the court’s recognition affirmed “the rights of family and children are engaged, and that the rights to equal protection is [sic] engaged.” The firm added that it looked forward to seeing what remedies the court would order.

The decision comes at a sensitive moment for LGBTQ+ rights in Hong Kong. Lawmakers are due to debate a government bill this week that would allow couples who registered same-sex partnerships abroad to secure limited rights locally, including on medical and after-death matters. The measure faces strong opposition in the legislature.

While the ruling stops short of creating full equality for same-sex parents, activists see it as a step toward dismantling a legal framework that still denies recognition to families who do not fit traditional definitions. Coleman himself put it simply: “The short point to be made is that a parent is a parent.”