The Australian government has given citizens another option for their passports when it comes to identifying their gender: male, female and indeterminate.
“This amendment makes life easier and significantly reduces the administrative burden for sex and gender diverse people who want a passport that reflects their gender and physical appearance,” stated Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.
Neither sex-reassignment surgery nor an altered birth certificate is necessary to have an updated passport issued. Transgender citizens will, however, have to present supporting documentation from their doctor.
While the change was instituted to prevent discrimination against transgender and intersex passport holders, being called “indeterminate” sounds pretty patronizing, to say the least.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Baby steps, we guess.
EdWoody
Yeah, I’ve have called it “other” rather than “indeterminate.” The latter makes it sound like they can’t quite figure it out.
Adam
Agreed. I’m proud Australia’s decided to give the option, but “indeterminate” is kind of insulting. Though maybe it doesn’t carry the same overtones as it does here?
verybookish
“indeterminate” I don’t like, but the fact that they are recognizing a problem and even ATTEMPTING a solution is great.
Hyhybt
If there were a single term on which ALL who are in any way do not strictly fit into the other two categories could agree, then perhaps they could use that term. Since there isn’t, this is at least better than putting in multiple other options, any one of which very few (certainly relative to those picking “male” or “female”) would use.
Kate Doak
“Indeterminate” is a cover-all term, as we have people who identify as neither, male, female or intersex here in Australia. A little research and you would have seen that we’ve had lawsuits over this.
Hence it’s actually a more enlightened term than what you yanks give us Aussies credit for.