Melbourne
— A TRANSSEXUAL who was refused the right to
change her gender on her birth certificate has sued the
Victorian Government for unlawful discrimination.
The woman, who was born a
man, had her application to change gender rejected by the
Victorian Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages
<http://www.dvc.vic.gov.au/bdm.htm>
on the basis she was still married.
The woman, whose name was
suppressed by the court, separated from her spouse in
1999 and afterwards began hormonal treatment and sex
change surgery, completed in 2002.
The Federal Court in
Melbourne heard yesterday that the woman last year
applied to change her gender on her birth certificate,
but the Registrar refused to consider her application on
the grounds of marriage.
The woman's barrister,
Fiona McLeod, told Justice Peter Heerey yesterday that in
refusing to consider the application, the Registrar
discriminated against her client in breach of the
Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act <http://austlii.law.uts.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sda1984209/index.html>.
She said the woman, who was born with an intersex
condition, wanted a declaration from the Victorian
Government that it had illegally discriminated against
her client, $1000 compensation for distress and for the
woman's gender to be recorded as female on her birth
certificate.
The court heard the
woman, who is now 62, was married for 32 years before
separating from her spouse, had no desire to obtain a
divorce, and considered that the marriage was still
valid.
After being rejected in
her application to the Registrar, she complained to the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
<http://www.hreoc.gov.au/>,
the court heard.
HREOC intervened
yesterday, arguing marital status amounted to
discrimination against women, as it assumed married women
in some way depended on their husbands. The judge
reserved his decision.
