Government departments are citing security concerns for gross mistreatment, withholding official documents, and violating the human rights of transgendered people, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has heard.
In a series of public forums transgendered people cried out for the Commission to step in and help them overcome continuing difficulties with government agencies and hospitals.
A report on initial consultations by the Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes into sex and gender diversity has revealed the hurdles to reflect sex-change on official documents like birth certificates and passports were considered unreasonable by many as they required major surgery and removal of reproductive organs.
I believe it is a human rights violation that I am forced to undergo surgery which I don’t need or want and that I feel is mutilation to be legally male, respondent Brad said.
Many who identify as sex and gender diverse still cannot access those systems, and those who can said the personal cost was too high.
To change the gender on [my NSW birth certificate] I must divorce my 79-year-old wife of 39 years and commit perjury by claiming irreconcilable difference, one participant, Diana, said. This is totally impossible and draconian, not to mention discriminatory.
Centrelink’s Job Network providers and employers doing routine police checks were often given records with mismatched genders.
According to the initial report, some respondents were told by government departments that security reasons were behind the need to know a person’s genital sex, even when outward appearance would be sufficient for identification.
The impact of a gender mismatch on travel documents placed transgendered people at significant risk, some said, especially if they were physically examined or arrested overseas.
But the cost of treatment or surgery remains prohibitively expensive in Australia and is not covered by Medicare, which leads to people prostituting themselves because they are desperate to gain funds for treatments.
Some gender clinics have a reputation for being conservative and only allow those male to female patients through who conform to a very stereotypically feminine aesthetic -” so much so that criteria such as wearing jeans, having largish hands or masculine appearance will rule them out, Evelyn said.
HREOC has started assessing the laws and policies that govern amending identity documents, and will formally issue recommendations to the Government.
info: The project has already spawned an online blog for further discussion of the issue at www.humanrights.gov.au/genderdiversity.
Centrelink, gender
