Australia reverses landmark no-sex ruling

Mar 18, 2010, 11:24 GMT

Sydney - An Australian who made world headlines by being officially declared neuter vowed Thursday not to surrender the 'sex not specified' identification document authorities in Sydney now claim they issued in error.

The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages said the certificate was invalid because new legal advice was that the registrar may 'only issue a recognized detail certificate or a new birth certificate following a change of sex in either male or female gender.'

Norrie May-Welby, born male but who decided to live as neither a man nor a woman after a sex change operation in 1983, pledged to continue fighting for the rights of the androgynous.

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

'I'm not a man any more. I'm happy to be seen as a neuter. I'm very happy being androgynous and people seeing me as such,' May-Welby said.

'I felt like I'd been socially assassinated,' the former drag queen said after being notified the certificate had been rescinded.

The registry had accepted a deposition from doctors that the 48-year-old former civil servant could not be classified as male or female and should be identified as non-gender.

May-Welby used the certificate to amend bank account details so 'no specific sex' appeared in the gender column. Scottish-born May-Welby intended to apply to the Immigration Department for a 'gender not specified' passport.

'You can't invalidate a contract you've delivered on because someone has given you some legal advice,' May-Welby said. 'If it had been a court judgment or an act of parliament, that can render a contract invalid.'

May-Welby said the certificate was groundbreaking because it recognized reality.

'The system has to accommodate the people it was set up to serve; we don't have to chop ourselves up to fit the system. That's been my stance.'

The registry office denied it had bowed to political pressure from the federal government and rescinded a document it initially declared was 'approved and finalized' by the New South Wales state government.