Longtime readers of this blog will know about the battles I had over 20 months to gain a passport.
The Australian Passport Office now has a new policy on the subject. Actually, not so much a new policy, as going back to the future - or rather, back to the far more humane policy they used to have.
It's detailed on their website, rather than being some big secret (as it used to be - so secret that even they didn't know it). And I'm not sure I could improve on it. All of our requested requirements have been met, and there's even a paragraph about assessing applications not within the guidelines on their merits, rather than adhering to rules that don't fit.
Had this policy been in place in 2005, it would have saved me much heartache, quite a few tears, not to say inummerable letters to ministers and bureaucrats and visits to lawyers. Some money too.
The whole schlemozzle is detailed in this set of posts. But it has had a happy ending, and normal human decency has prevailed. Not before time, but we got there in the end.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Congratulations. It is a victory indeed. And I guess your own part there was quite significant. Good job.
In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill.
In the UK, recently the government decided to issue replacement birth certificates so that people who have changed sex can be officially recognised as what they present as. I find that a bit odd, as a birth certificate registers the status quo at that time - it's a bit like recording someone's place of birth as, say, Croydon, and changing it to say Kingston when they move house.
On the other hand, someone's official sex should be how they present, because for practical purposes, having a passport that says "male" when they present as female just causes unnecessary difficulty. A passport is just a travel document, after all. Perhaps they should have introduced some sort of official sex-change certificate rather than issuing what amounts to a false birth certificate. Particularly now that people are changing sex in their teens and so their change will be more complete than it would have been in the past.
I find that a bit odd, as a birth certificate registers the status quo at that time - it's a bit like recording someone's place of birth as, say, Croydon, and changing it to say Kingston when they move house.
Except it's not quite like that. "Changing sex" is a bit of an unfortunate misnomer really. Regardless of what a TS person looked like (and were subsequently assigned as) when they were born, they are and always were of the reassigned sex.
It may seem a subtle distinction, but it is not so much as changing the sex on the birth certificate as correcting an error that was made when details of the birth were originally recorded.
M2
I was born in the UK.
I can't get my BC changed.
That's because I'm technically Intersexed, not transsexual. Also, I'm not Intersexed in one of the few ways that the bureaucracy have decided count. I know, I've tried. The Public Records Office say I'm not IS in the right way, so must go through the TS process, the Gender Recognition panel says I'm obviously IS not TS, so should go back to the PRO.
It's complicated. I may have to take it through the EU court on human rights.
My UK passport says "Female" as it accords with reality. But with a UK BC saying "boy", in the UK I could only marry another woman, as same-sex marriage is absolutely forbidden. Terrible effects would ensue if it were allowed. Society would collapse.
In Australia of course, I could only marry a man, as same-sex marriage is absolutely forbidden. Terrible effects would ensue if it were allowed. Society would collapse.
Sorry, I have difficulty taking these objections to same-sex marriage seriously, under the circumstances.
Post a Comment