SUBMISSION ON THE MARRIAGE EQUALITY AMENDMENT BILL 2010
Dear Committee Secretary,
I'm already in a legal same-sex marriage. We celebrated our 31st anniversary yesterday.
We married in 1981. In 1985 I was diagnosed at a Fertility Clinic as Intersex - thought to be male. My birth certificate says "boy", and I was legally male when married.
In 2005, after my body changed, I was re-diagnosed more accurately with "severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman". I am now legally female.
I have a letter from the former Attorney General, the Hon. Peter Ruddock, confirming that as our marriage was valid when contracted, subsequent changes of circumstances do not affect its validity.
While such natural changes are rare - less than 100 in Australia - they happen. More common are Transsexual transitions, which require medical intervention.
Some of us are married. A few of the stronger marriages survive, despite the enormous societal, social and personal pressures to end them.
Same-sex marriages exist, and have existed for decades. Society has not collapsed. Children of those marriages continue to grow up, indistinguishable from other children their age.
Marriage equality will be made available to all, sooner or later. So please, in the name of sheer human decency and common humanity, let it be sooner.
To make your own submission - for or against - please fill in the http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/senate-inquiry-submission-form/.
3 comments:
That's a good letter Zoe, well done for your support for marriage equality.
Surprisingly a while back a prominent Sydney Trans person asked me why I bothered to take part in a marriage equality protest march when I am already legally able to marry.
It seems that some people among our communities don't see any value in supporting a wider campaign for human rights.
... and btw ... I'm sure it'll upset some in opposition, but make others chuckle that you've renamed the former, very forgettable Attorney General Phillip Ruddock.
Yay!
You go Girl! :-)
Oops - well, it began with P.
If I don't ask for equal rights for others, how can I ask them for myself?
Post a Comment