In 1991, Lim Ying, then aged 30, a female Malaysian babysitter who claimed she did not know that her husband had undergone a sex-change operation until their wedding night was granted an annulment by the High Court on 13 June 1991.
Lim and Hiok got married in July 1990. Within less than three months, Lim petitioned for annulment on the grounds that:
- Eric Hiok, her 'husband' was biologically a female, and therefore there never was a marriage, or alternatively,
- on the basis of non-consummation due to the incapacity of the respondent
This controversial landmark case provided Singapore with her first precedent on the legal status of transsexuals in the area of marriage, unearthed a hotbed of legal issues, social policy and moral-religious concerns, and carried far-reaching implications.
The Straits Times carried at least five reports on the case before and after the judgement was delivered, in the 12 June 1991, 14 June 1991, 15 June 1991, 25 July 1991 and 28 July 1991 editions. The interest it stirred up was evident in the divided reactions of members of the public who were interviewed and who wrote in to the editor.
Judicial commissioner K S Rajah declared her marriage to Eric Hiok Kian Ming null and void. Lim discovered her husband's secret, that he was assigned female at birth, on their wedding night when they attempted to have sex. Hiok, who appeared very masculine, disagreed, arguing that Lim knew beforehand that he was a transman. They could not have penetrative sexual intercourse because he had not been fitted with a penile implant.
Lim created legal history when her application to the High Court to have her marriage annulled succeeded. Judicial commissioner Rajah ruled that a person's sex was fixed at birth in the eyes of the law. The legal poser that the High Court had to tackle was whether the marriage was void right from the start, or whether it was just voidable. Rajah's judgment declared that the marriage was void from the beginning.
See also[]
- Singapore transgender history
- Transgender people in Singapore
- Discrimination against homosexuals in Singapore
- Archive of "The Forced Sterilization of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in Singapore", LGBTQ Policy Journal, 2015-2016
References[]
- https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Search?ST=1&AT=search&k=Hiok%20Kian%20Ming%20Eric#
- https://v1.lawgazette.com.sg/2008-12/news2.htm
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228297377_Transsexuals_and_Sex_Determination
- http://www.worldlii.org/int/journals/lsn/abstracts/648421.html
- https://law1.nus.edu.sg/sjls/archive.asp?strSearchGeneralOption=2&strSearchType=bas&strSearchGeneral=&intPage=95&intPageSize_Input=10
- https://theprojectx.org/2016/lgbtq-policy-journal/
- https://swanprojectsg.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/a-singaporean-history-for-transgender-people/
- Tan Cheng Han, "Transsexuals and the Law of Marriage in Singapore: Lim Ying v. Hiok Kian Ming Eric", Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, December 1991, pp. 509-516[1].
- Kweh Soon Han and Lee Juet Jin, "Transsexuals and sex determination", Singapore Academy of Law Journal, Issue 4, 1992, pp. 86-115[2].
Acknowledgements[]
This article was written by Roy Tan.