Siu-fung was born female and identifies as socially male.

He hasn’t had sex reassignment surgery and competes in the female bodybuilding category.

Here he tells Amnesty International of his experience as a transgender athlete, the struggle for transgender equality in Hong Kong and his hopes for the Gay Games, the world’s biggest international sporting and cultural event featuring athletes and artists with different sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

In 2022, Hong Kong will become the first Asian city to host the event.

“Bodybuilding is a paradoxical sport when it comes to gender, especially for female bodybuilders. It creates the biggest muscular women but at the same time regulates what femininity is. When we are on stage we are judged not only on our muscle – we have to do our hair, put on make-up and wear a particular style of bikini.

I don’t think of myself as either a man or woman. I don’t want to be confined by a binary construction of gender that society imposes on us. Bodybuilding allows me to explore and transcend these boundaries.

Before my first competition it was a huge challenge for me to wear a bikini and perform on stage with confidence, as I wanted to be seen as a man. I learnt to remove the binary labels we give clothes and treat the bikini as a costume. Now I get excited wearing beautiful bikinis on stage, although I wouldn’t wear them on the beach.”

“My father told me I have chosen a difficult path, and he worries whether I will have enough friends. These are the worries every parent has about their child. Several years ago, he asked me which washroom I use as he realized the problems this can cause me. Now we go to the same washroom. He also started to share his clothes with me and accepts it is normal that I dress socially male. My family are trying to accept me for who I am.

“When I started bodybuilding my mum really hated it. She would say muscles are for men not women. She’d tell relatives I was competing and I will look ‘normal’ after my competition is over. This changed last year when I had my first competition in Hong Kong and she wanted to watch. I came fourth and she came backstage afterwards and told me I should have won as I had the most muscles.”

“This highlights the need for Hong Kong to have anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people. It shouldn’t be the only goal but it is an important basic step. The discrimination won’t go away but at least we have a basis to protect ourselves and it sends a strong message to the wider community.

Even though it is five years away, I’m already excited about competing in the games in my home city. It will be a major milestone for the LGBT movement in Hong Kong and Asia. I hope it will encourage both LGBT people and the wider community to play sport, but also for sport to be a platform to promote human rights and equality.
For bodybuilding we hope to have an additional category alongside male and female, either transgender or one where you don’t have to assign a label to yourself. This will send a positive message to the transgender community in Asia.

We hope the Hong Kong government will get behind the games, including the use of public sports venues. So far the government has been quite cautious and ambiguous, claiming it supports equality but doesn’t want to be seen to be privileging certain groups.”

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