On 21 October, a petition campaigning for trans gender and intersex rights was passed on to Jan Logie, Green Party MP.
The petition itself reads:
“We call on the Minister of Internal Affairs to enable adults with intersex conditions and trans and other gender diverse adults to change the sex details on any official documentation to male, female or indeterminate based solely on the individual’s self-identification, without any requirement for medical treatment and without the need to resort to a court process.”
The reason for this petition is because to legally change your gender currently, the individual must undergo gender affirmation surgery – the surgery itself is costly and dangerous, as well as the thinking behind this being rather outdated.
At the moment, there are two legal identification documents allowing self-identification: the passport and driver’s licence. However, many other agencies have not followed suit.
Logie says, “we need to have consistency across all of our identity documents. Having inconsistent identity documents can make applying for a job or house a scary experience and it can open people up to discrimination that they could have otherwise avoided. We shouldn’t force people to go through a court process and undergo unwanted medical treatment to be able to live as their affirmed agenda.”
