Transgender people should be recognised as their chosen gender as long as they have made a declaration to live permanently as a particular gender, Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has advised.

The EOC also urged legislation against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation “as soon as possible” in a paper on gender recognition submitted to the government this week.

Hong Kong currently only issues new identity documents if a person has undergone surgery to reconstruct sexual organs. The EOC said this practice should be replaced by a system in which “there should be no requirement for medical diagnosis.”

EOC chairperson Professor Alfred Chan Cheung-ming said that the government’s working group “should not be [consulting] on whether a gender recognition scheme should be introduced in Hong Kong but rather what kind of gender recognition scheme should be adopted,” according to the South China Morning Post.