Australia’s highest court yesterday recognized the existence of a third, “non-specific” gender that is neither male nor female, in a landmark ruling campaigners said would help end years of discrimination.
The High Court of Australia ruled that not everyone should be forced to identify as a man or woman when dealing with officials, saying some people could legitimately describe themselves as gender neutral.
“The High Court ... recognizes that a person may be neither male nor female, and so permits the registration of a person’s sex as ‘non-specific,’” it said in a unanimous judgment.
Photo: EPA
The decision ended a long legal battle by sexual equality campaigner Norrie, who goes by one name, to overturn a New South Wales (NSW) state edict that gender is an inherently “binary” concept involving only men or women.
“I’m overjoyed,” the Sydney-based activist said. “It’s been a long time from start to end, but this has been a great outcome.
“Maybe people will understand now that there’s more options than just the binary. So while an individual might be male or female, not all their friends might be and maybe they might be more accepting of that,” Norrie, 53, said.
Norrie, who uses only a single name, was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1989 to become a woman.
However, the surgery failed to resolve the Scottish-born activist’s ambiguity about sexual identity, prompting a push for the recognition of a new, non-traditional gender.
Norrie made global headlines in February 2010 when an application to the NSW Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages accepted that “sex non-specific” could be accepted for Norrie’s records.
However, soon afterward the office revoked its decision, saying the certificate was invalid and had been issued in error.
At the time, Norrie said the decision felt like being “socially assassinated.”
That sparked a series of appeals which resulted in the NSW Court of Appeal recognizing Norrie as gender neutral last year, a decision which the High Court backed yesterday.
The Human Rights Law Center, which provided expert testimony in Norrie’s case, said the court had “rejected outdated notions of gender” in the decision.
“Sex and gender-diverse people face problems every day accessing services and facilities that most Australians can use without thinking twice,” the center’s litigation expert Anna Brown said. “It’s essential that our legal systems accurately reflect and accommodate the reality of sex and gender diversity that exists in our society. The High Court has taken an enormous leap today in achieving that goal.”
Brown said the decision did not mean people could simply identify themselves as “non-specific” and expect legal recognition.
Under the law, only a person who had undergone gender reassignment surgery could nominate themselves as “non-specific” after presenting medical evidence to back up their claims, she said.
Brown added that it remains unclear who gender-neutral people would be able to marry.
“No one has actually looked at that question legally,” she said, adding that there were few international precedents for the decision.
In most states across Australia same-sex couples can have civil unions or register their relationships, but the government does not consider them married under national law.
Germany last year passed a law allowing babies born with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was