Sex and gender recognition (page 4 of 8)

For an introduction to these issues, see our page on identification documents

an outline of a court building

High Court: NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v. Norrie

Update: We welcome the High Court judgement to recognise Norrie as having “non-specific” gender. We take no pleasure in having to comment on this case, currently before the High Court, Australia’s highest court, which has a hearing likely to be heard on 4 March 2014. However, the case raises the stakes for intersex people in…
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Birth registrations and the necessity or prohibition of medical treatment

Historically and currently, Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) legislation is used to make trans people undergo medical treatment in order to change the sex marker on their documentation. Despite this, the link between birth registrations and medical treatment on intersex people is not clearly understood. Indeed, this area of legislation is often seen as an…
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Identification document

The third intersex forum and identification documents

The third international intersex forum included a self-organising working group on identification documents. Given recent and proposed developments in Germany, Australia and Argentina, this seemed to be useful. 11 people from 8 organisations participated, and most of the text was included in the final forum statement. Our understanding is that the statement was shortened due…
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a baby on a yellow background

Revised policy on identification documents

Read about bodily integrity, and eliminating harmful practices Read about eugenics, prenatal screening and elimination Read about discrimination, and stigma Read about identification documents, sex and gender Important note: this paper should not be regarded as a guide to our current policy on identification documents. Our approaches have been informed by community-building and evidence-building, and…
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OII Australia logotype

Open birth sex assignments do not reduce surgical interventions

Blank or indeterminate classifications on infant’s birth certificates do not, alone, reduce the likelihood of surgical interventions. This might seem like a non sequitur, but it turns out to be fundamentally important because many people do argue that moves in Germany to establish similarly open sex assignment polices for some intersex infants at birth will…
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a pink and white orchid, close up view

Intersex Awareness Day, 2013

Here are this year’s Intersex Awareness Day words, by Morgan Carpenter, OII Australia president.

Screenshot of article about the 'third gender'

German proposals for a “third gender” on birth certificates miss the mark

Over recent days, there have been a number of articles stating that the German federal government is proposing a “third gender” or blank sex designation on birth certificates for intersex people. As with recent federal Australian identity guidelines, the German proposals have generated enormous interest. From Der Spiegel: The option of selecting “blank”, in addition…
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