LGBTIQ Discrimination in Legislation : legal registration of sex and gender and laws relating to sex and gender reassignment

S. Moulds, D. Plater

SALRI?s most significant recommendation is that the Sexual Reassignment Act 1988 (SA) should be repealed and a process for changing a person?s registered sex and/or gender be included in a new Part 4A of the Births Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996 (SA). For adults, this would be a direct application process based on the existing change of name provisions and would allow for a person?s gender or sex to be described as ?male?, ?female?, ?Other, please specify?, with an option to provide a further self-describing gender identity such as ?trans?. This third option, based on the principle of self-identification, would align with relevant human rights statements and be consistent with the Australian Bureau of Statistics proposed new Sex and Gender Identity Standard. Should the prospect of permitting applicants to self-describe their gender identity give rise to insurmountable administrative difficulties, alternative suggestions for describing the third option are ?non-binary? or ?unspecified?.