| Australian passports no longer support the gender binary |
 Australian passports no longer support the gender binary
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Sep. 15th, 2011 @ 05:19 pm 
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New Australian passports will now have a third option for gender: If someone doesn't want to go with M for Male or F for Female, they can have their gender entered on their passport as "X".
The article quotes comments from Senator Louise Pratt, whose partner is a transgender man. "There have been very many cases of people being detained at airports by immigration in foreign countries simply because their passports don't reflect what they look like," she said.
"It's very distressing, highly inconvenient and frankly sometimes dangerous."
DFAT (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) has also, however, apparently issued a warning that this *can* cause problems crossing some international borders. Which is not so good, but that's not really within DFAT's purview, because the Australian DFAT does not actually control the affairs of foreigners.
Neither is the matter of birth certificates, which come under state law. Senator Pratt and a Connor Montgomery quoted in the article (whom I presume from context to be her partner) both say national reform on that question is necessary, but that's something that the Federal Government can encourage but not legislate, so.
Still, it's pretty significant, especially since you can get by without a birth certificate, especially if you have a passport. (Believe me, I know - I don't know where my birth certificate is, and even if I did, I believe it would be borderline useless in a number of respects, not least because it doesn't actually have my parents' names on it.)
So. Yay for Australia!
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