Australian passports to have third gender option

X category aims to counter discrimination against intersex people, while transgender people can pick male or female

Staff and agencies

guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/),

Thursday 15 September 2011

Australian passports will now have three gender (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gender) options male, female and indeterminate under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/transgender) and intersex people, the government said Thursday.

Intersex people, those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definitions of female or male, will be able to list their gender on passports as X.

Transgender people, whose perception of their own sex is at odds with their birth gender, will be able to pick whether they are male or female if their choice is supported by a doctor's statement.

Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The US dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people's passports last year.

Australian senator Louise Pratt, whose partner was born female and is now identified as a man, said the reform was a major improvement for travellers who face questioning and detention at airports because their appearance does not match their gender status.

"X is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth," Pratt said. "It's a really important recognition of people's human rights that if they choose to have their sex as 'indeterminate', that they can."

Australia (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/australia)'s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, said the new guidelines removed discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation.

"This amendment makes life easier and significantly reduces the administrative burden for sex and gender diverse people who want a passport that reflects their gender and physical appearance," he said in a statement.

The attorney-general, Robert McClelland, said while the change would affect few Australians, it was important because it would allow them to travel free of discrimination.

Peter Hyndal, who negotiated with the government on the reforms on behalf of the human rights advocacy group A Gender Agenda, said the new guidelines were in line with more flexible approaches to gender issues in passports issued by the US and Britain.

"It's amazingly positive," Hyndal said. "It's the biggest single piece of law reform related to transgender and intersex issues at a commonwealth level ever in this country mind-blowing."

As many as 4% of people have an intersex condition, but most never become aware of their minor chromosome abnormalities.

Earlier this year, the transgender and eunuch Hijra community in Bangladesh won a fight for third gender category when authorities printed passport application forms with 'other' as an option. Hijras in neighbouring India have been able to list their gender as E for eunuch on passports since 2005.

Last week Thai campaigners successfully petitioned courts to allow transgender people to serve in the military after previously being turned away of the grounds that they were suffering from "permanent psychosis".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/se ... der-option

I had just read this article on a different news site, and thought it should be shared here. Glad someone beat me to it.

Pardon me for being pedantic, but what Australia seems to be doing is further confusing what gender and sex is. How come they're basing the gender identity on the passport on physical bits?

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JesusA (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:59 am Intersex people, those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definitions of female or male, will be able to list their gender on passports as X.

"

It is my understanding that a good amount of, if not majority, trans and intersexed people, are still firmly on either of the 2 major gender dichotomies, that is to say, identifying as either a man or a woman. It has nothing to do with what they physically have, pre-op, post-op, or non-physically dysmorphic.

If anything often the people who do not feel like they belong solely in one of the 2 categories, have little desire to do much to their bodies as they either don't see the point, not belonging to either gender identity anyway, or having a use for the body they have as they identify with both. No doubt the choice to have an "indeterminate" option is a good thing, but anyone reading the way it was written (by the Guardian, so maybe it's the british who're to blame for spreading misinformation), could easily be led to think that all or most of us trans people are "inbetween" (hint: we're not).

This is all very perplexing, because they need to be clear if they're actually indicating sex or gender. If it is sex, then there is male, female, intersexed. That is it, there is no other chromosome combination. I have no qualms admitting what my chromosomes are(XY), and no amount of surgery changes those chromosomes, so why is it something to feel uncomfortable about? If it is really gender that the passport wishes to indicate, then whats the link to the physical?

I applaude this move by australia but they really NEED to be very clear on how they make the distinction and whether they're indicating sex or gender. Maybe this should be the first thing the world tackles really.... to distinguish between sex and gender. No point trying to bring on all these grand measures when there isn't even a basic understanding of what is what.

I think that this is a positive movement from my country as this is an area where having an inbetween is perfectly valid.

For me personally, I would always identify myself as a male even if I removed my sex drive (and even private parts), but I'm sure that there are many out there who identify themselves (and would like to be able to feel more normal about doing this publicly) as neither male or female.

I just hope this isn't a case of trying to fly before one can even walk, nevermind run.

To me, and for the purposes of my living a live that is decent as I experience it, and decent as people not particularly prejudiced might experience encountering my life, the notion of linear gender (a linear continuum from female to male) is not less atrociously abusive than the binary gender notion is.

Perhaps reading, studying, and understanding the book, "The Uninvited Dilemma," written years ago by Kim Elizabeth Stuart, would help some folks whose beliefs as applied to me I experience as sorrowfully abusive to acquire a sense of the multi-dimensionality of human gender and human sexuality.

There is within me, a quiet sense of hope that MtE will become an approved gender transition at the WPATH meeting, this fall. I really would like the fact that I am not a member of the binary gender community to become legal and lawful.

The "Media Note" regarding U.S. passports and gender, of June 9, 2010, I found at:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/06/142922.htm

From the second paragraph of said Media Note:

Beginning June 10, when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender.

The last one-paragraph sentence of said Media Note:

The new policy and procedures are based on standards and recommendations of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), recognized by the American Medical Association as the authority in this field.

Those two quoted sentences may be part of a way for me to cease being as though sentenced to being an invalid by society?

It seems to me that, if MtE becomes an acceptable gender transition at this fall's WPATH meeting (Hurray for our Jesus! Or, how about, "Thank you, Jesus!" (no disrespect thereby for THAT other Jesus)), then the U.S. Department of State using the WPATH standards just might allow me to upgrade my passport, to show my real gender ("E") when I need to renew it late next year?

That promises to be an interesting experiment in terms of compliance with the notion of being truthful when making application for passport renewal and correction...

What about the notion of my orchiectomy being appropriate when it was done? My brother had not yet been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Did my orchiectomy become appropriate only after the validity of my cancer risk concern was firmly established by my brother's imminent physical demise medical diagnosis? If that is the way the law works, then there is no way for my orchiectomy and MtE transition to ever be deemed to have been appropriate when it occurred?

Gotta love the law!

It's starting to get cold where I live. I'm not looking forward to the winter. Thinking about going to California. Perhaps I will not stop in California but go on. However I can't swim there and don't want to take a small boat. There are stowaway possibilities. Going to England and becoming a criminal is out. Besides they no longer ship their criminals down under anyway. Suffering from unresolved feelings of latent stowawayism here... Maybe I can fly there afterall. I think I see a flock of a very rare breed of flying wallabees coiming in the distance. Don't want to be left behind with the Kiwis, but then again maybe that would do. Why of all the English speaking places did I have to get stuck here in the most backward one. It was once the most progressive but that was generations ago. Kiwi will do. They just don't fly is all. But then I have talked a few Kiwis who said they flew here. Okay since flocks of a very rare breed of flying wallabees almost never come through, I'm going to jump into someone's pocket. AH! That STUPID Joey! Stay tuned everybody. -Not giving up yet.