Neither M nor F: Australian wins landmark no-sex ruling

Mar 17, 2010, 3:00 GMT

Sydney - An Australian who had had a sex-change operation in 1983 before deciding to live as neither a man nor a woman was celebrating Wednesday after a Sydney registry office issued a landmark 'sex not specified' identification document.

Norrie May-Welby, 48, said the issuing of a Recognized Details Certificate in Sydney was a groundbreaking event.

It is the first such certificate issued in Australia.

'It's just a piece of paper, but it's world-changing,' May-Welby told the Sydney Star Observer. 'It means whenever I go in and fill in paperwork and someone says, 'Are you a Mr or a Miss?' I can say I'm neither, here's the paper saying that - please comply.'

The New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages accepted a deposition from doctors that May-Welby could not be classified as male or female and should be identified as non-gender.

The authorities issued the certificate, which has already caused a bank to amend account details. It also changed to 'no specific sex' the gender item in May-Welby's Scottish birth certificate.

Next stop is the Immigration Department and a request for a 'gender not specified' passport.

May-Welby, who arrived in Australia as a 7-year-old, stopped hormone treatment not long after the gender assignment operation at the age of 21.

'I don't see myself as absolutely one or the other,' May-Welby's blog attests. 'Although I may use the ladies loos for convenience, I use the men's change room at the pool if I am with my gay male friends.'

May-Welby said the recognition of being genderless was part of a progression that has seen religion and race being excised as identifiers in passports and other documents.

'We tend to see the social rules we inherit as unchangeable, but they do change, as society comes to value each person equally, without prejudice (that is) based on race or marital status or sexuality or sex,' May-Welby wrote.

'There is no reason for still insisting that our legal identity must include a public statement about a very private matter, our sex.'