Alex MacFarlane

Alex MacFarlane is an intersex person born with XXY sex chromosomes in Victoria, Australia. Alex MacFarlane is believed to be the first holder of an indeterminate birth certificate and passport.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Holder of first Australian sex non-specific identification documents

Alex MacFarlane is believed to be the first person in Australia to obtain a birth certificate recording sex as indeterminate, and the first Australian passport with an 'X' sex marker in 2003.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Alex MacFarlane was reported as receiving a passport with an 'X' sex descriptor in early 2003.^[1][2][5] This is stated by the West Australian to be on the basis of a challenge by MacFarlane, using an indeterminate birth certificate issued by the State of Victoria. The West Australian newspaper reported in January 2003 that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade "had decided to accommodate people whose birth certificates recorded their sex as indeterminate ... Alex is also believed to be the first Australian issued with a birth certificate acknowledging a gender other than male or female. Alex's says "indeterminate – also known as intersex". It was issued in Alex's birth State of Victoria, which unlike WA, changed its policy to allow the category".^[1]

Australians with sex non-specific or indeterminate identification documents

Norrie May-Welby is a Scottish-Australian who is popularly – but erroneously – often regarded as the first person in the world to obtain officially indeterminate, unspecified or "genderless" status.^[7][8][9] May-Welby became the first transsexual person in Australia to pursue a legal status of neither a man nor a woman, in 2010.^{[7][8][10][11]}

Councillor Tony Briffa JP, of Organisation Intersex International Australia and the City of Hobsons Bay, Victoria, previously acknowledged as the world's first openly intersex public official and mayor,^[12][13] states on Tony's website that "my birth certificate is silent as to my sex".^[14][15]

Australian government policy on recognition of 'X' sex or gender

Government policy between 2003 and 2011 was to issue passports with an 'X' marker only to people who could "present a birth certificate that notes their sex as indeterminate"^[16][4]

In 2011, the Australian Passport Office introduced new guidelines for issuing of passports with a new gender, and broadened availability of an X descriptor to all individuals with documented "indeterminate" sex.^[17][18] The revised policy stated that "sex reassignment surgery is not a prerequisite to issue a passport in a new gender. Birth or citizenship certificates do not need to be amended."^[19]

Australian Commonwealth guidelines on the recognition of sex and gender, published in June 2013, now extend the use an 'X' gender marker to any adult who chooses that option, in all dealings with the Commonwealth government and its agencies. The option is being introduced over a three-year period. The guidelines also clarify that the federal government collects data on gender, rather than sex.^[20]

References