I who may well be...

Pray For Paris Tribute - Anti-War speech by 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi)

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 21:55:00 +1100

RAP NEWS 12: Yes We KONY?

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:15:00 +1100

Interview with Norrie mAy Welby

Thu, 8 Mar 2012 23:26:00 +1100

Law of Australia

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:14:00 +1000

Law of Australia

Panorama: Neither man nor woman: in future third generation in Australian passports indicating possible - Baden-zeitung.de

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:00:00 +1000

Panorama: Neither man nor woman: in future third generation in Australian passports indicating possible - Baden-zeitung.de

Neither M nor F: Australians can tick the X box - Monsters and Critics

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:35:00 +1000

Neither M nor F: Australians can tick the X box - Monsters and Critics

New Oz passport gender options on SameSame.com.au

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:27:00 +1000

New Oz passport gender options on SameSame.com.au

Gender X | gaelick

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:17:00 +1000

Gender X | gaelick

Red: "Non-Binary" Person Rejects Male/Female Gender Duality : Indybay

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:43:00 +1000

Red: "Non-Binary" Person Rejects Male/Female Gender Duality : Indybay

The Transformation of Norrie-May Welby Part 1

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:49:00 +1000

Package Deal

Sat, 1 Jan 2011 21:49:00 +1100

My mother just sent me some drawings I did when I was 7, on the ship that brought our family to Australia in 1969. She reminded me of the exhibition they held of the children's drawings, and she thought mine had not been included, until she discovered the special room that had been dedicated to my artworks. I took it for granted, other children seemed very dull to me, and wasn't surprised that the art teachers had been so impressed with my productivity and artistic skill that they dedicated a special room to my artworks. "That's when I knew I had a genius on my hands", she told me today, when we talked by phone. Well, you kept that a secret for forty years, I thought, and remembered the battles between my parents and me, with them insisting on my obeying them, and me not seeing any reason to, for most of what they wanted from me seemed extremely uninteresting. And if they knew I was artistically talented, why did they periodically destroy my comic book collections? If they appreciated my intellect or talent, why did they abuse me for wanting to stay in my room writing and reading and drawing? It seemed they did everything to steer me away from my sensitive artistic nature, for fear that I would otherwise be more effeminate or gay. My parents were so scared of having a homosexual child that they put real efforts into opposing my nature, depriving me of affection for fear i was too sooky, refusing to compliment my intellectual achievements for fear this would give me a "big head", leaving me to think that in their eyes I was unwanted and useless.

But it's a package deal isn't it. The same people that passed on their emotional deficiencies to me also passed on the genes that made me such a clever clogs. If only they had risen above their homophobia and been accepting and supportive of my nature when I was a very young vulnerable child... But then I may not have had such a raging fire in my belly against discrimination based on sex or sexuality or gender expression, and a raging fire against stupid and unjustifed authoritarianism, nor be in a position to challenge the legal sex binary. I may have just been a well adjusted queen with a loving husband and a florist shop. But, as Judge Judy says, "If I would have had different parents, I would be six foot tall." The world needs people of varying heights, and it was my turn to be me, with all the antisocial quirks that also make me socially influential ;)

Greens MP David Shoebridge at Wikileaks rally

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:20:00 +1100

see norrie red. see norrie see red. see norrie run. rip, norrie, rip.

Message to Anonops AKA Operation Payback

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:05:00 +1100

States to consider rights of genderless people

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 00:49:00 +1100

http://www.smh.com.au/national/states-to-consider-rights-of-genderless-people-20101208-18pxg.html

States to consider rights of genderless people

Sean Nicholls

December 9, 2010

THE need for a national approach to legal recognition of ''genderless'' people - who identify as neither male nor female - will be raised by the NSW Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, at a meeting of his state and territory counterparts in Canberra tomorrow.

The issue was highlighted in the Herald in March through the story of Norrie, a genderless Sydneysider who has battled the state bureaucracy for the right to be recorded as ''sex not specified'' on official documents.

Norrie, who was born in Scotland, became the first person in NSW to be neither man nor woman in the eyes of the state government after he was issued with a Recognised Details Certificate containing the notation.

It was issued after two doctors agreed that Norrie, who was born male but had gender reassignment surgery and now prefers not to identify as either sex, was physically and psychologically androgynous.

But the certificate - which may be provided by the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages to immigrants who have changed their sex and want it recorded - was later ruled invalid.

''The case of Norrie earlier this year highlighted that some people wish to identify as having an unspecified sex," Mr Hatzistergos said.

He noted that a report last year by the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended that an adult should be allowed to choose to have an unspecified sex recorded on official documents and records.

''This is a very complex area of social policy with very significant legal and practical implications on a national scale,'' he said.

A ''sex not specified'' classification could potentially raise difficulties for governments in areas such as marriage, which is defined in legislation as being between a man and a woman.

Other areas for discussion may include placement in aged care, hospital rooms, emergency refuges and prison, as well as the issue of security protocols such as body searches.

Norrie, who welcomed the move to raise the issue at the meeting, has lodged an appeal against the decision of the registry with the Administrative Decisions Tribunal and expects a decision within months.

Frank & Desdemona are beautiful

Mon, 6 Dec 2010 16:09:00 +1100

Norrie and Annie - Still Fierce 2010 (Imagine)

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 01:23:00 +1100

norrie plays guitar

Saints and Miracles

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:28:00 +1100

Even if there is no God, there is an ethical imperative to treat all other people known and unknown as equally valuable as ourselves as created by our mutual creator, whether you give that a name or just see it as the unknown forces or principles creating and shaping our universe.

"God" for me is a easier word for "the unknown forces or principles creating and shaping our universe". It is not unreasonable to believe that as my thoughts shape my emotions and movements and other people's reactions to me, and other people's reactions to them, my prayers or thoughts may have effects beyond the rationally predictable (limited by our limited knowledge of reality).

As i understand it, Catholics don't actually pray to saints like they were gods or demigods, but to use them as a focussing aid, like imagining a good friend with you, or humming Ohm, to communicate with what you can of the principles behind your ongoing creation.

How can there be miracles, when bad things happen? This is quibbling about detail. I've never met anyone, no matter how clever, who has built a better universe than this one, with all it's earthquakes and cancers and wars and whatever. I don't understand the fine tuned balance of where we are in the quantum creation of time and space and matter and energy, so I see all of existence as miraculous.

Lovely moment in today's smh, next to the headline "Rudd: I believe in miracles", a photo of three political adversaries, Barnaby Joyce straightening Kevin Rudd's jacket, while Julie Bishop oversees this intimate adjustment.

Focussing on where the glass is half empty may give keener detail, but make you feel thirstier. Looking on it as half full gives greater happiness. As always, the choice is yours ;)

Fred Nile's Worst Nightmare

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:52:00 +1000

Declassification

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:21:00 +1000

Declassification

by norrie mAy-welby

Humans have done a lot of classifying of each other in order to exploit each other. It's hard to eat someone if they are classified the same as you, but the moment you class your own tribe as human and those of other tribes as not so human, you have a lot more food available.

Those of the ruling class, the inheritors of those who thieved the right to a free livelihood from your ancestors, benefited from the division of labour of those working in their factories and those rearing the next generation of employees.

But this classification is not respectful of human dignity.

I was four years old when I realised my mother was utterly absurd in claiming I could not play with my cousin's dolls. My cousin was classed as a girl, while I was classed a boy. The unseen physical difference between us seemed irrelevant to me, especially compared to the power gap between both of us and the monstrous adults. My mirror neurons told me there was nothing essentially different between me and my cousin. The adults I was physically dependent on made many ridiculous attempts to enforce a normative sex classification onto me, from smacking me for crying, to not allowing me to learn typing. Their slavish devotion to sex roles did not give me a high level of respect for their intelligence.

When I became interested in sex, I realised it was illegal for me, thanks to the classification system and the prohibition against same-sex sex. Many of those prohibitions have now been repealed, in many western countries at least, thanks to the tireless work of many people who actively believed in social justice. Marriage, however, remains forbidden for those classed as same sex, even in this supposedly relatively enlightened country, while homosexuality is actively prosecuted in many countries we trade with.

The enforcement of prohibitions based on sex classification creates a slave class of women in fundamental and sexist societies, victimises people classed as same sex attracted, and butchers babies who don't fit the standard sex classifications until they do fit, after years of invasive surgeries to their genitals as children, and the administration of animal or synthetic sex hormones often without the child's knowledge or consent.

The binary breaks down in so many places, but those in charge of the armed forces in society go to excessive measures to paper over the cracks in their delusion that everyone is of one of two classes of human. People are allowed to change gender, but only to transition neatly and unambiguously from one of the two main classification to the other. Transsexuals have their new sex paid for and recognised by the state in Iran, while homosexuals have a wall pushed on them, all to remove evidence of any space between or variation from masculine males and feminine females.

I bought the binary lie for a while, decades ago, when I was diagnosed as transsexual and prescribed synthetic and horse hormones, and had a sex change op, but of course, it did not change my reproductive sex from male to female, merely remove reproductive sex, and give me an androgynous physique, which, as it turns out, suits my androgynous psyche.

I am sick of the lies, and the crimes carried out to support the lies, that everyone is male or female. I petitioned the authority claiming to be the government of New South Wales to recognise that I exist as an adult without being specifically male or female. (I qualify their claim to be a government, as almost ever system I encounter is governed by forces and principles other than the humans who claim to be in charge of them. So-called "governments" do not govern either my breath or the sunrise, and their claimed authority is but vaingloriousness.)

This government initially recognised my sex classification to be unclassifiable in binary terms, "Non specific", as the medical authorities certified, "Not Specified" as the government issued certificate stated. When others discovered this case when I went public after a month, they thought about the consequences for their systems so dependent on an enforcement of the fictitious sex binary, and claimed the certification had been made in error, for even the people who changed their whole computer system to issue my certificate apparently now realise people can only ever be male or female, regardless of any conflicting evidence.

It's too late to stop the idea now. The genie is out of the bottle, and the sky didn't fall or society grind to a halt in the month I had my certificate and changed my sex to "Not Specified" with various other state and federal government agencies and my financial institution. It was not just the result of my own efforts either, for it was the result of years of education and activism by many against the tyrannies of imposing a compulsory sex binary on everybody. Other people and groups around the world are calling for similar freedom from an imposed lie.

No matter what or how much I have to do to proceed this legally, I will win my case again sooner or later. I have nothing to lose, save the stain on the soul from agreeing to a lie that makes many people miserable and turns infants into medical experiments. This is an idea whose time has come. Like abolishing slavery two hundred years ago, and ending the prohibition on women voting a hundred years ago, and ending the criminalisation of same sex sex thirty years ago, it is time to stop insisting that every human be classified male or female and given different privileges based on how they and their personal relationships fit a clearly opposing sex scheme, and well past time to stop butchering babies to fit into one of two approved roles.

Civilisation requires that we agree that every human has equal rights, and not impose with the state apparatus the various old power un-sharing schemes that may have been better than the even worse regimes they replaced, but are still an offense to human dignity.

confessions of an appellant

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:38:00 +1000

When I was in court last week, i didn't need my reading glasses, even for the tiny print in the wads of previous legal judgements the Crown Solicitor sprang on me without warning. I was like an owl looking for a mouse in a field at night, when its chicks will starve if it can't find the mouse, that mouse was toast :)

My favourite challenge was to a judge's statement that the "assumption" of the law is to establish whether people are male or female, an assumption the Respondent had to admit had no other basis in law other than it being said by a judge, and the judgment that 'Most people are male or female", which strongly implies and certainly allows that not all are.

Anyway, for a fleeting moment I wondered if I could be a lawyer, but I really only have these amazing skills when the matter animates my whole being, when it's so crucial and important to everything I believe in and am connected to and am part of...

I don't know which side the Crown Solicitor is really on, as their case studies support my case, revealing for example a person found to be not male, but not established as female, thus proving a non-specified sex to be a legal fact, not an inconceivable possibility, and their argument seems to be that the law acknowledges there are "people of indeterminate sex", and "surgery to correct or eliminate ambiguity", but that changing or registering sex is only ever to establish a person as having a legal status of male or female, with no other options allowed in law, although apparently recognisable by the law in reality, but not in any actual individual's legal documention, for fear of the consequences for a society with so much legislated sexism.

Yes, it's out there, they were the first to talk consequences, so I admitted there could be challenges, but insisted it was the job of the law in this case to establish the truth, no matter if that makes life more interesting or not for some parties.

By my side was Tracie O'Keefe, also picking up pertinent points and challenging a fictional binary that medical science has destroyed. Tracie actually is English, but I picked up the accent in elocution lessons when I was a child, and there were moment when I thought we sounded like a pair of court scene Quentin Crisps.

Anyway, the troops are rallying, one of the architects of the Transgender and Other Amendments Act of 1996 turned up as we came out of court, and they are now researching the Hansard to show the inclusive intention of parliament when it passed the relevant laws, and we have an appointment with a barrister who had been caught up as a candidate in the election that's finally over on Saturday, won't that be good?

There may not be another court date, it all depends on what the Tribunal makes of the written legal submissions each side now makes with regard to the intent of the meaning of sex in the legislation, does it only mean male or female, is non-specific an acceptable status of sex, can there be no other status of sex than "male" or "female" (on a planet where most sexually reproducing lifeforms are hermaphrodites), and when is a neuter not a neuter?

Laters ;)

submission to Administrative Decision Tribunal 18 August 2010, Norrie V Registrar Births Deaths and Marriages

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:35:00 +1000

These are the notes I made for an oral submission to the court, but somehow that's not how the Tribunal does things, and they silently read my notes instead. (the matter has been held over for further written submissions from each party, due in six weeks)

----------------------------------------

How I come to be here is a little confusing, as the Respondent has already complied with my wishes, and extensively documented how they made those changes, and I am left with no real understanding of why they have been persuaded to insist their every move before the case went public was not just a mistake but indeed a series of consecutive failures to properly administer the law by not one but at least three senior people working in the department of law and justice (ie the Births Deaths and Marriages Registrar, the Manager of Amendments Section of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and the Policy Advisor from the Attorney General's department.) I thank the Respondent for making the right decision in the first place, and for the evidence they have provided for my case in their submissions.
The Respondent's first submission dated 29 April, tab 16, shows the proper steps taken to issue my certificate. STEP THRU THE PROCESS DOCUMENTED BY THE RESPONDENT
As the Respondent points out, sex according to the Oxford English Dictionary is not just male or female but may also be a third option, or third sex, consisting of (a) eunuchs and transsexuals, to quote the pertinent clause. There is an attempt in the submission made on behalf of the Respondent (2 July 2010, paragraph 40) to present this as a straw man argument, in claiming that the source is a historical dictionary, however, "transsexual" is a current term, coined in 1947, hardly Shakespearean but modern times, and indeed in modern use, as is the concept of "third sex", or a third alternative to the more common two categories of sexes, still part of modern language and understanding, as it was when the Transgender laws of 1996 were passed.
The Act talks about intersex people, directly and unambiguously implying an understanding that people can be, and can be legally recognised to be, other than strictly male or female.
Further, the Act talks about "correcting or eliminating ambiguities", directly and unambiguously implying that there is a space between correcting and eliminating ambiguities, allowing for a person to be other than 100% male or 100% female. And indeed, this is the part of the Act that applies to me, for I had surgery to correct or eliminate any ambiguity about my sex being, in the framework of male or female, non specific, that is, in the terms agreed to by the Australian Human Rights Commission, and by the Respondent, prior to the change of opinion generated by the Crown Solicitor's Office now representing them, sex not specified.
The legislation in section 32A confirms that a sex affirmation procedure includes not only changing a persons sex from one gender to another, but importantly also correcting or eliminating ambiguities relating to the sex of the person. This second element of the definition of sex affirmation procedure is relevant to my case in that the statutory declarations of Doctors Kearley and Schultheiss evidence that as a result of my sex affirmation procedure I am unambiguously not male or female, but rather have a sex status that has been affirmatively described as "non specific."
The form issued by the Respondent for medical certification in this matter has the phrase "male" stroke "female" in brackets as a guide for completing doctors, but of course this is not proscriptive, in giving the usual options, and the form does not ask the doctor to cross out or circle one of only two possible options, but gives open space for the doctor to certify what sex the subject is, perhaps with reference to the normal sex categories, and in accordance with the form and the Act and the regulations, my doctors certified the truth of my sex in this part of the form as "Non-Specific", which is, in terms of male or female, what I am. It is absurd to insist, as the Respondent does in their submission, that because a form gives a suggestion, this suggestion is proscriptive. The Respondent took a much more reasonable view of this in the time before the Crown Solicitor's Office suddenly decided it had all been a horrible mistake after it hit the front page.
It is a plain and straightforward matter: I have been neutered, I am neuter. This is not Spanish, this is not a new post-modern language or some ancient historical curiosity, this is the plain English reality of my sex. Neuter, not one or the other, to use the root meaning of the word, in Middle German, "ne itter" that is, Not Other, or Not Either. Non-Specific, to use the phrase used by the doctors in certifying the sex I am as a result of the surgery that, in neutering me, eliminated any ambiguity about my sex being neuter. "Not Specified", to use the phrase agreed to by the Respondent before they arranged to change their entire computer system to accommodate the acknowledged reality of a third sex option. The Respondent's entire case at this point seems to be the insistence by repetition that the only acceptable answers to the question of what sex a person can be are "male", or "female", and no other answers are permissible, although they sang an entirely different song before they issued the certification. Against this is the simple fact of my sex being non-specific, as you may plainly see, and as certified by the doctors, and indeed, after much consideration and consultation, by the Respondent, prior to their change of heart after what the Attorney General described to parliament as "media ventilation".
Three sex categories have been recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organization since 1947, M for Male, F for Female, and < for Unspecified
It is an accepted principle of law, as i understand it, that that which is not prohibited is permissible. There is no prohibition against ambiguity of sex in the Act, and indeed it explicitly recognises the possibilities of there being ambiguities, and of having those ambiguities corrected or eliminated. That the form produced under the regulations of the act has a suggested framework of firstly indicating that a person has had surgery to correct or eliminate ambiguity, and then separately stating what the new sex is, allows for a variety of results. In my case, I had surgery to correct or eliminate any ambiguity about me being androgynous, and as a result, my actual sex is not specific, that is, in the framework of male or female, it is not specifically either. Before the surgery the reality was that I was intersex, but perceived as biologically male, and to correct this, I had my testes removed, and I am now, therefor, by definition, and by self identification, and by how I am seen in my community, a eunuch. Neuter, androgynous, eunuch, third sex, non specific sex, there are indeed, contrary to the Respondent's submission, many ways in modern current English to conceive of people who are not strictly male or female. The phrase recommended by the Australian Human Rights Commission in the Sex Files Report (previously tendered in evidence) is “Sex not specified”, and the Respondent initially dealt with my request in line with the recommendations of this report. I note the Respondent was represented at the launch of the Sex Files Report, as noted in the Australian Human Rights Commission Annual Report previously tendered in evidence. They clearly took the recommendations made in that report as to how to accommodate people like me that are "sex not specified" in accepting my request, correcting their computer system, and issuing my certification.
The case was dealt with in a plain and straightforward manner to start with, and proceeded in a plain accountable way through the verification of my details with the doctors, the consultation with the Policy Advisor verifying that my application complied with the Act, the approval of my application by both the Manager of Amendments and the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registrar, and the department wide change to the computer system to accommodate this third sex status. There is no lawful cause preventing the recognition of my sex as "Not Specified", and every reason to uphold the original decisions to issue my certification as requested, and to reject the Respondent's post-publicity assertion that, in a Act that deals with changes of sex and with intersex people and with "correcting or eliminating ambiguities", my sex cannot possibly be other than male or female. Well it is, doctors have certified such, the Respondent has recognised such, and, it is the reality.
By not acknowledging my status as ‘Sex Not Specified’, as attested by the doctors, the Respondent is soliciting me to act in a fraudulent manner in my everyday dealings by encouraging me to mislead people about my sex status. The Respondent cannot reject the medical evidence. They say they do not know what sex I am but they have the medical evidence which they accepted. To paraphrase the judgment handed down in the case of In Re Kevin ( documented at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/family_ct/2003/94.htmls) , a federal case that illustrates how legal identification of sex is done where one's adult sex may be at variance with what's documented at birth,

12. (a) I have always perceived myself to be of non specific sex;

(b) I have long been perceived by those who knew me to be of non specific sex;

(c) I have had a full process of sex re-assignment, involving removal of sex-hormone producing organs and irreversible surgery, conducted by qualified medical practitioners;

(d) In appearance, characteristics and behaviour, I am perceived as androgynous, that is, as a person of non-specific sex, by my family, friends and work colleagues;

(e) I have been accepted as a person of non-specific sex for a variety of social and legal purposes, including my drivers license, issued by the state authority, my bank, St George, and Centrelink, a federal department.

This is the reality of my ordinary everyday life.

14) This case is not about the right to choose. It is about a medical reality and the right to have documents that reflect that medical reality.

15) The law allows for the recognition of my legal identity with my sex status stated as "Not Specified", as the Respondent initially, and after careful consideration and much process, agreed in the certification they issued, and I urge you to uphold that recognition and certification. Thank you.

UK might follow Aussies to recognise non-specific gender - PinkPaper.com

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:20:00 +1000

UK might follow Aussies to recognise non-specific gender - PinkPaper.com

Norrie performs at QC Wolongong

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:18:00 +1000

The happy eunuch, story from Sun Herald by Steve Dow

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:56:00 +1000

The happy eunuch
Posted 27 June 2010
http://www.stevedow.com.au/default.aspx?id=511
On a Sydney hospital operating table on April 3, 1989, between the hours of 2pm and 4pm, Scotland-born, Perth-raised Norrie, then aged 27, ceased to have a penis when the appendage was inverted to a vagina.

Back then, Norrie identified as “transsexual” – a woman born inside a man’s body – but these days the 49-year-old is a self-described “happy eunuch” and, yes, still has nerve endings below.

“My youngest sister was clearest about me,” recalls Norrie, sitting in a busy, cluttered lounge at home in Redfern, having fled Perth for Sydney in 1988 to escape persecution.

“She would say, ‘Some people are girls, and some people are boys. Norrie’s a mix; if you can understand ‘girl’ and ‘boy’, you can understand Norrie’.”

Living as a boy, Norrie had changed his middle sister’s nappies in the family’s Perth home when she was a baby; the experience “taught me unconditional love”.

In turn, for most of their lives now, siblings Heather and Moira have seen Norrie, who had been on female hormones since age 23, in 1985, as their eldest sister.

While their mother Marion accepted Norrie’s fluid identity, Norrie’s late father, a plumber by trade, “said he accepted me as his child but still had some funny judgements”.

Dressed today in a cool, multicoloured tie-dye outfit, hair piled high and pushed to the side, Norrie deliberately confuses notions of fixed gender identity.

The hormones ceased years ago – evidenced by Norrie’s flat chest – while the higgledy-piggledy adopted surname, mAy-welby, is both a pun and a clever evasive retort to questions of: What are you?

The mostly lower-case surname letters are the form their owner has used since creating a chat handle in the early days of the internet, a place where, from the beginning, you could be whoever you wanted to be; the capital “A” might well stand for anarchy.

“Well, it’s to rearrange capital,” Norrie offers with a subversive smile, “put it in the middle for a fairer distribution”.

Gender ambiguity might threaten some people, but it opens some doors: “Although I may use the ladies’ loos for convenience,” says Norrie, “I use the men’s change rooms at the pool if I am with gay male friends”.

No account of Norrie’s story can get too far without making some grammatical decisions. While some people fighting Norrie’s cause to be legally recognised as neither male nor female employ gender-neutral pronouns such as “hir” or “zhe”, Norrie, to make communication easier, is personally comfortable being referred to as “her” and “she”.

That’s a curiously conciliatory gesture, given Norrie has taken the NSW Government to the federal Human Rights Commission for allegedly breaching the United Nations Charter on Human Rights after the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, told State Parliament that a recognised details certificate declaring Norrie’s “sex not specified” had been “issued in error”.

Katrina Fox, editor-in-chief of www.thescavenger.net/, the online magazine that broke the news the certificate had been issued – and who favours gender-neutral pronouns – has known Norrie nearly a decade, describing “hir” as “an articulate, colourful, intelligent and passionate person willing to put hir neck on the line and speak out about being different”.

Norrie is the first Australian to have been issued with a non gender-specific identification document in replacement of an existing birth certificate, albeit briefly. In 2003, another androgynous person, Alex MacFarlane, was issued an Australian passport identifying the holder as neither male nor female but as X.

Such instances are rare anywhere in the world. A couple of countries, notably India, have in recent years begun offering a non-gender specific option on passport applications, while Nepal has reportedly issued at least one non gender-specific identity card to a citizen.

But Hatzistergos told the NSW Parliament in March that after the news of Norrie’s certificate being issued was “ventilated” in the media, his department’s director-general had discussed the matter with the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriage.

Legal advice then obtained from the Crown Solicitor stated “that the registrar may only issue a recognised detail certificate or a new birth certificate following a change of sex in either male or female gender”.

In other words, Norrie would be forced to choose an identity, and couldn’t occupy the middle ground.

The Attorney-General added he was “advised that the registrar could request a return of the certificate … [given] it was issued in error, but has determined in the circumstances that he does not propose to take this action, although he has advised Norrie that the certificate is invalid”.

What does Norrie’s case mean for society as a whole? “Well, the sky didn’t fall in during the days Norrie had the ‘sex not specified’ document,” says Katrina Fox. “Hir fight will mean that the growing numbers of people who do not conform to binary sex or gender models will no longer be afraid to speak out about who they are.

“Hopefully, this will lead to a broader understanding of sex and gender identity and concepts of man and woman and masculinity and femininity, and evolve us as a species.”

Norrie could not have foreseen becoming the poster person for gender fluidity. Born in the rough town of Paisley on May 23, 1961, Norrie’s family fled “classist” Scotland for a better life in a place said to be more egalitarian, Australia.

Arriving in Perth aged seven, in 1968, it was a lonely childhood at times. “I used to tie long ribbons from my hair and pretend I had girly features, girly hair. When no one was looking, I’d skip and jump…

“I was fairly isolated from other kids, often had my head in a book. But you get that,” Norrie laughs. “If you’re at a certain end of the distribution curve in terms of intelligence, there might not be that many people you want to talk to.”

On arriving in Sydney, Norrie stayed in a refuge for transsexual people, finding camaraderie and acceptance, but Norrie wrote in autobiographical notes published on the web that wider society could still be dangerous: “In the ‘straight world’, I was treated as a liar if I did not reveal my transsexuality, and a pariah if I did.

“I was abused by men, sometimes for being a transsexual, often for just being female. I was taken from a nightclub by five guys who, unaware of my transsexual status, raped me. All this happened within the first year of changing sex. I stopped going to straight nightclubs. I no longer wanted to live as a normal heterosexual woman.”

An epiphany would come when staring into a campfire in 1992 at the Confest hippie festival at Tocumwal, wondering what identity to adopt in the world. Norrie came up with the term “spansexual”; the term is intended to bridge divisions between gender, gender identity, sexual preference or orientation.

And Norrie’s own sexuality? “I’d be the perfect androgyne if I was completely omnisexual, but I’m only monosexual. Just think of me as a big queen girl.”

That doesn’t narrow matters down too much: seven years ago, Norrie had intended getting married to a man, which all sounds quite conventional – had the law accepted Norrie as female, of course, which would have been contestable given others had known Norrie as androgynous for so long, and had the relationship not petered out.

“We had a commitment ceremony, and I viewed that as an engagement, but the relationship fell apart very quickly after that, so I’m glad I didn’t take measures to legalise it. It wasn’t the time. Dodged the bullet!”

For some years, Norrie worked as a prostitute along William Street. What did those experiences glean about human identity and sexuality? “That it’s very broad and flexible and adjustable. People adjust to what they find when they’re horny and wanting some human companionship.”

In her 1994 book Gender Outlaw: on Men, Women and the Rest of Us, US author Kate Bornstein, who also underwent gender reassignment surgery from male to female, suggests eliminating gender as a system given it limits people’s sexuality as well as their identities.

Bornstein adds this idea frightens people because, if they are sexually attracted to someone whose gender is ambiguous, what does that attraction make them?

Does Norrie think Bornstein’s idea is a good one? “I think it’s a good idea to eliminate it as a system, as a trap, [but] I don’t think you can eliminate gender [all together] because everyone’s got gender and expresses it between each other and it varies from time.

“Sometimes I might feel girly, like throwing on makeup, or doing feminine things. Other times I might feel like doing masculine things.

“If you meet someone that relates to you in a feminine or masculine way, you may adjust how you relate to them. Your gender shifts; there is gender – there’s just a quality that shifts, like yin and yang; it’s not something that should be nailed to us like jam jars, that that’s how we’re labeled.”

Will we really “evolve” as a less rigidly defined species, as Fox suggests? “I think it’s inevitable,” says Norrie. “Society does change. A couple of hundred years ago, a lot of us thought slavery was OK. One hundred years ago, a lot of us thought women not having the vote was OK. Times change.

“Race used to be part of our legal documentation, our religious denomination used to be part of our identity; that’s shifted. You didn’t used to be allowed to be openly gay. It’s illegal to discriminate against someone who is transgender. Now I hope the UN will uphold my complaint and find it’s illegal to discriminate against someone who has no specified sex.”

Facebook | Your Videos: Norrie on German TV April 2010

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:09:00 +1000

Facebook | Your Videos: Norrie on German TV April 2010