OII Australia is delighted that Ms Imbruglia received an apology from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It seems, though, that DFAT has yet to fully come to terms with the facts of intersex. We are hopeful.
“A transsexual has won a written apology from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the distress she experienced as a result of having to travel on a passport that identified her as a man.…”
Transsexual wins apology over passport.
Ms Imbruglia said the department had agreed to restore the right of transsexuals travelling abroad for gender surgery to a passport in the appropriate gender. It has also agreed some people of diverse or indeterminate gender identity who may not be suitable for genital surgery should be able to get a suitable passport. Ms Imbruglia said she was delighted that common sense had prevailed.
Editorial Comment:
Australian intersex people have been mistreated by DFAT in almost the same way as Ms Imbruglia. A member of OII Australia travelled to Thailand for urogenital correction surgery a year before Ms Imbruglia, before the Howard federal government’s Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, instituted even more draconian policies in his department against anyone seen to be non-standard. Our member received a temporary one-year passport in her actual sex – female – so that she could avoid travelling to Thailand on a previous passport that proclaimed her sex as that her attending birth physician stated.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer engaging in some transgender behaviour. Photographer unknown.
On her return our member applied for her temporary passport to be replaced with a permanent 10-year passport. She was refused. Between applying for her temporary passport and her return, Foreign Minister Downer had made the regulations even more restrictive. It was to be quite some time until our member finally received her permanent passport in her actual sex.
On applying to the Australian Human Rights Commission for assistance in her case, she was told that intersex people have no protection of any kind and thus the Commission could do nothing to help her. On the other hand, transsexual and transgender people do have certain protections against discrimination and vilification, though certainly not equality – neither intersex nor transsexual nor transgender people have that.
Let us now hope that things are about to change significantly, at DFAT’s passport office at least.
OII Australia wishes to thank Hon. Nicola Roxon, Minister for Health and Ageing, and Brendan Nelson, retiring member for the federal seat of Bradfield, for their advocacy to DFAT on behalf of our member, and we also wish to thank Senator Louise Pratt for her tireless work on behalf of all Australian LGBTI people.
