Passport Battle Finally Resolved

THE FIGHT TOOK OVER TWO YEARS, with the help of Dr Tracie O'Keefe at Sex And Gender Education (SAGE)

In July 2007 Stefanie Imbruglia, a 42-year-old transsexual woman, applied to the Australian Passport Office (Run by the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade), to get a female passport so she could travel to Thailand for Sex Realignment Surgery. While she was registered as male at birth she had been living as a female for two years. To her amazement she was told by the passport officer at the counter that she would only be allowed to travel on a male passport even though she had lived as female for two years and had letters from her medical specialists confirming she had been undergoing treatment for sex and gender dysphoria.

Twenty years ago there was famous case of the Australian transsexual woman Estelle Asmodelle,  who was arrested in Singapore after she had been forced to travel on male a passport. This case forced the Australian passport office to start issuing limited one- year female passports to transsexual women travelling abroad for surgery and permanent female post-operative transsexual women who had had their Australian birth certificates changed. Stefanie, standing in the passport office, found herself extremely upset and afraid as the very rude passport officer kept referring to her as “Sir” even though she had on a skirt and jacket and presented as female.

When Stefanie arrived in Thailand for her surgery at the airport she was indeed stopped by a passport control officer in front of all the other passengers on her plane and called to account for the discrepancy between her female appearance and male passport. The incident was highly embarrassing for her and forced her to have her medical history disclosed to the public against her will. Exactly what she warned the Australian DFAT would happen, did happen.

On returning to Australia, after surgery, Stefanie as a member of SAGE (Sex and Gender Education), a political lobbying group for sex and gender diverse people, decided to bring a case against DFAT with the Australian Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) now the  Australian Human Rights Commission) AHRC). The case was that DFAT had knowingly placed Stefanie in danger by refusing to issue her with a passport that reflected her identity. It was in Breach of Article 12 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986. The United Nation’s convention on human rights requires countries to issue citizens with documents of safe travel in and out of their countries.

Stefanie also filed a complaint that DFAT had been guilty of sex discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. Since it had issued her with a female passport on her return from Thailand but refused to issue her with one before she went, it had discriminated against her because she presented as the same person on both occasions. The complaint also encompassed the way she had been mistreated by the officer at the passport office. Genitals by themselves do not make a person’s sex or gender. Around one in 100 children are born with some kind of sex or gender diversity.

What DFAT agreed to:

2.      The restoration of the right for people going abroad for sex realignment surgery to be given a passport in their appropriate sex and/or gender.

3.      The recognition that some people who are intersex, transexed, transsexual, transgendered or any of the other sex and gender diverse identities may not be suitable to have genital surgery. They may, however, live in their preferred sex and/or gender roles.

4.      That such people upon presentation of a letter from a medical professional would be able to have a permanent passport in their needed sex and/gender. Not all people are able to change their birth certificates or cardinal documents to reflect their identity.  Each case would be considered on case by case basis.

5.      That the phrase ‘medical professional’ would be interpreted as meaning a doctor, gynaecologist, endocrinologist, urologist, psychiatrist, endocrinologist, psychologist, psychotherapist, counsellor, sexologist, and social worker; in accordance with international standards of care for helping sex and gender diverse people.

6.       An alteration to DFAT’s training material for employees that lumped all sex and gender diverse people under the umbrella ‘transgender’, which is offensive to many sex and gender diverse people. They changed their tautology to address Sex and Gender Diverse people’s needs and allowing those people to identify as they needed under the Sex and Gender Diverse label without discrimination.

7.      The removal of an offensive training handout to employees that gave wrong and misleading information about sex, gender and sexuality diverse people to its employees.

8.      That people presenting with no sex or gender on their cardinal documents may be considered for a passport that does not state sex or gender. This clears the way for parents of intersex children who do not wish to be forced into registering their children as male or female when that child may be strictly neither or both. Some adults identify as neuter and wish their documents to reflect that status.

And Finally,

..In a Nice Finish to this Chapter, I was deeply honoured to be Recognised by the GBLTI Community, when I was nominated (Thanks to whom-ever did that) and made part of the SameSame Top 25 "Most Influential Australians" List for 2009  

http://www.samesame.com.au/25/2009/