A transsexual Canberra woman has forced the Australian Passport Office into an embarrassing backdown, after the office admitted guidelines it relied on to reject her application to change her passport didn't exist.
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Required to travel overseas for work, Marcelle, who asked not to have her surname published, applied to the Australian Passport Office for a female adult passport in November last year.
She was refused on the grounds that her birth certificate said she was male and that she did not meet humanitarian guidelines.
After appealing against the decision, she asked to be shown the humanitarian guidelines that were being using as a basis for the approval of passport applications, but when pressed to produce these guidelines the Passport Office admitted it did not have any.
She won the case and has been issued with a full passport stating her sex as female.
''Since transitioning over 12 months ago, family, friends, work colleagues, church and those in my local community, especially those that I play sport with, have consistently shown themselves to be supportive, considering that transitioning is such a culturally difficult concept to accept and to understand,'' Marcelle said.
''With this change in policy it is good to see the Government is now starting to align themselves with the attitude of most Australians.''
Following that decision, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced on Wednesday a change of policy to make obtaining an Australian passport easier for sex and gender diverse people.
Under the new guidelines, sex reassignment surgery will no longer be a prerequisite to obtain a passport in a person's preferred gender.
''Sex and gender diverse people now have the option of presenting a statement from a medical practitioner supporting their preferred gender,'' Mr Rudd said.
''This amendment makes life easier and significantly reduces the administrative burden for sex and gender diverse people who want a passport that reflects their gender and physical appearance.''
The change sweeps aside a complex web of contradictions and hurdles. Previously, in order to change the sex on an applicant's passport, their birth certificate had to match, but, in order to change their birth certificate, they had to have sex reassignment surgery.
Until now, post-operative transsexuals were afforded much more legal recognition because of their ability to define themselves anatomically and socially as male or female.
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