A lawyer said on Monday that a Singaporean couple legally challenged authorities, who annulled their marriage, as the husband went through a sex change operation.
In 2017, the city-state invalidated the marriage stating that after the sex change operation it has become a same-sex marriage, which is illegal in the country.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said that the south-east Asian country is not yet ready to accept the concept of same-sex marriage.
Reports stated that the couple, Faith and Bryce Volta got married in 2015. The husband, Faith, who changed his sexuality to become a woman, updated her national identity card to read 'female'.
Later, when the official from Registrar of Marriages met the couple to discuss the sex change issue, Faith and Bryce came to know that their marriage will not be valid after the operation.
The lawyer of the couple, Eugene Thuraisingam said that his client urged to the High Court to review the decision of annulling the marriage.
In 2017, a Singaporean gay man went to US and paid US$200,000 to become a father of a boy through surrogacy but the district judge has rejected his appeal to adopt the child. The court stated that the Adoption of Children Act did not allow a homosexual person to adopt a child.
Singapore law under the Section 377A of the Penal Code governs 'Outrages on decency' and explicitly prohibits homosexuality or same-sex marriage. It states that any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.
