Hong Kong bills itself as Asia's World City, a cutting-edge metropolis that effortlessly fuses the traditional and the modern. But on the subject of rights for sexual minorities, gay rights activists say the city is firmly stuck in the past. The High Court will hear a landmark judicial review challenge by QT, a British lesbian woman who is accusing the Immigration Department of discrimination.

She moved to Hong Kong in 2011 when her partner accepted a technology job. The couple are in a civil partnership in the UK and she applied for a dependant visa, granted to the husbands and wives of expatriates working in Hong Kong. Such a visa allows the bearer to work, to access public medical services and provides a path to permanent residency. But applications to the Immigration Department proved unsuccessful, because officials refused to recognise her UK-registered civil partnership. Read More