The first person in Australia to be legally recognized as neither male nor female has complained to the country’s human rights watchdog after authorities revoked a certificate declaring the person sexless.
Norrie May-Welby made headlines earlier this month after the New South Wales Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry issued a certificate declaring the 48-year-old “sex not specified.”
The New South Wales government this week said the official document had been withdrawn after legal advice suggested the registry did not have the power to issue such a certificate.
The Australian Human Rights Commission said the Scottish-born Norrie had filed an official complaint following the revocation.
“I can confirm that the complaint has been lodged under the Sex Discrimination Act,” a commission spokeswoman said yesterday.
Norrie was born a man and underwent gender reassignment surgery 20 years ago to become a woman.
However, doctors recently said because Norrie had stopped taking female hormones several years ago, they were unable to determine a gender.
“A couple of years after the operation I decided I wanted to go off hormones and find out what it was like without taking my identity from a bottle,” Norrie told public broadcaster ABC. “I’m very happy and well-adjusted with myself being androgynous and with people seeing me as such.”
Born with “boy bits,” but more inclined to identify with mother, Norrie described feeling “over the moon” when the original certificate was issued.
“And suddenly the attorney-general’s turned around and said ‘oops I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have done that, it’s not valid,’” Norrie said. “I felt like I’d been socially assassinated.”
The Australian Human Rights Commission last year recommended state law be changed to allow people 18 years or older to nominate a non-specific gender on documents and records.
Norrie said officials should recognize a wider gender spectrum.
“If I’ve got this certificate I can say ‘your system has to accommodate the people it’s there to serve, we don’t have to chop ourselves up to fit the system,’ that’s been my stance,” Norrie said.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS