Criteria established in the reKevin decisions

The conclusion of Justice Chisholm in reKevin was this:

“To determine a person’s sex for the purpose of the law of marriage, all relevant matters need to be considered. I do not seek to state a complete list, or suggest that any factors necessarily have more importance than others.

However the relevant matters include, in my opinion:

the person’s biological and physical characteristics at birth (including gonads, genitals and chromosomes);

the person’s life experiences, including the sex in which he or she is brought up and the person’s attitude to it;

the person’s self-perception as a man or woman;

the extent to which the person has functioned in society as a man or a woman;

any hormonal, surgical or other medical sex reassignment treatments the person has undergone, and the consequences of such treatment;

and the person’s biological, psychological and physical characteristics at the time of the marriage, including (if they can be identified) any biological features of the person’s brain that are associated with a particular sex.

It is clear from the Australian authorities that post-operative transsexuals will normally be members of their affirmed sex.”(1)