Australia Highest Court recognizes gender neutral category cannot classify only male and female

Australia Highest Court recognizes gender neutral category cannot classify only male and female

Australia’s highest court on Wednesday ruled that a person can be legally recognized as gender neutral as opposed to male or female, ending a long legal battle by a sexual equality campaigner.

The High Court said that a person may be neither male nor female, and so permits the registration of a person’s sex as ‘nonspecific,’

In a landmark decision, the court ruled a Sydney resident known as Norrie could be registered as having a non-specific gender.

Norrie was born a male and had sexual reassignment surgery in 1989 but did not identify as male or female.

In 2009, Norrie applied for a name change and to be registered as being of non-specific sex.

The NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages at first agreed, but then revoked that ­decision.

After that he filed a case and NSW Court of Appeal recognizing Norrie as gender neutral last year, a decision the High Court backed on Wednesday.

The historic decision on Wednesday recognized the right of transgender people to be registered as a third category of sex on their NSW birth certificates.

Germany last year passed a law allowing babies born with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female.

India also needs to provide a separate category on government forms, applications where a person can choose Neutral Gender


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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Tags - Australia Gender Neutral