Transsexual Action Group

by Ricki Carne, Secretary, Transsexual Action Group

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A response to the article "Surgically Acquired Legal Privileges" printed in the October edition of Polare - T.A.G.s perspective.

The struggle for transsexuals to obtain the right to alter the sex as indicated on our birth certificates to that of our reassigned sex has been an extremely thankless task fought by a few on behalf of the many for over twenty five years in this country. In more recent years this fight has usually taken place alongside calls for transsexuals to be accorded inclusion in Anti-Discrimination legislation in N.S.W. Five years ago a group of tranys got together to form the Transsexual Action Group, with the sole aim of going all out to have Births, Deaths and Marriages Act amended to allow transsexuals the right to alter their birth certificates as required and to amend Anti-Discrimination legislation to include the needs of the transsexual community. We fiercely committed ourselves to success with no room for retreat or failure and resolved to disband upon completion of this task.

As policy coordinator and secretary of T.A.G. I have been one of those who, in the cause, has knocked on every relevant pollie's door in this country, politicked myself into a frenzy in the background as well as being at the forefront of discussions with these people and their departmental advisers etc. ad nauseam during the past five years. I'm not painting myself as a hero or martyr to the cause here as I was not alone and many times I've been dragged into this kicking and screaming when I've wanted to get on with other pressing matters in my personal life. None­theless our efforts have recently been rewarded with the announcement of the N.S.W. Government Caucus' approval for the drafting of amendments to the Births, Deaths & Marriages Act to accommodate the needs of post-op transsexuals, to anti-discrimination legislation so as to include transsexuals (the efforts of T.L.C. in this must not go without applause) and for a grant to be directed to the Law Reform Commission to fund the examination of other areas which may require legislative reform.

First, lets chuck out those fears which have been raised that female to male tranys will be left off the hay-ride here. F.T.M. transsexuals who have undergone a radical hysterectomy, double mastectomy and are on a course of androgenic hormones will be included on the amendments to he Births, Deaths & Marriages Act via some judicious wording of the definition of the term "gender reassignment".

Just as we are finally knocking on the door of some success, who should make into the debate with all of the grace of a drunken sumo wrestler but that tireless promoter and purveyor of pseudo-journalistic "prose" norrie mAy Welby. This person, whose own C.V. proudly offers up credentials such as ownership of a mobile phone and P.C., self employment - as a prostitute no less and is what she calls a "writer" as evidence that she has "made it" has never offered anything of substance to the trany community but rather has dragged us through the mud on a regular basis with her mindless maunderings in the gay press, complete with her regular totally filthy language (included, it would seem, to impress upon us that she is some kind of a free spirit or the trany answer to Cathy Lett). Among some of the more hysterical gems to be found in her colourful diatribe in the October edition of Polare, is her styling of supporters of such legislative reforms - and this therefore includes members of T.A.G. - as "self-righteous, self-serving, sanctimonious, genitally realigned tranys who want to reinforce the myth of gender polarity and prove that they are better and more legitimate members of their chosen gender than their non-operative peers". She goes on to claim that we must have an all out perfectly constructed all inclusive set of amendments to current legislation or nothing. This demonstrates how far out of touch this person is with the process involved in achieving this sort of political reform, of community opinion generally and the transsexual community particularly.

We do not see ourselves as desiring to reinforce the "myth of gender polarity" - what myth? It's an irrevocable fact that there are many differences or aspects of polarity between the sexes, just as there are similarities. Either way we don't care about such issues - we have lives! These ideas of surgically acquired superiority or legitimacy of being have not cropped up in our minds ever - so how does Welby account for coming up with these? Could it be that such thoughts have entered into her head at some time? As for getting up "floorless" legislation which includes anyone who cross-dresses on a regular basis, you can forget it. The overwhelming majority of our community holds to the belief that a person with male genitalia and male chromosomes is a male, regardless of artificially created female hormone patterns, dress preference or declared state of mind. That's one reason why we go for "the op" you know - it completes the picture somewhat and removes a terrible nagging contradiction. In short, it's because we agree to some extent with that common view however distasteful this may be and so we seek harmony of mind and body. Where community perception lead, politicians will follow. They know that to fly in the face of such strong social contention by allowing pre- or non-­operative tranys to change their birth certificates is political poison. As for dreams of abolishing notation such as our sex on all birth certificates, they are just that - dreams. Dreams of a golden place where no one will ever suffer because a silly thing called sex or sexuality never got invented or noticed don't count in A.L.P. Caucus meetings or in any pollie's cockroach ridden office in the real world my friends. Forget it forever; such views represent a concoction in the minds of a few deluded individuals from the late 20th century and nothing more - relax Norrie, you'll get over it.

Pre-operative transsexuals know that they will achieve the change in sexual status on their birth certificates after a waiting period of two years or thereabouts when they undergo reassignment surgery. In the meantime, all tranys will be protected to a good degree from the difficulties faced by not having a birth certificate with the correct sex on it by the proposed anti-discrimination amendments. Our ideal was to somehow include pre-ops in the legislative reform but it just could not be done.

There seems to be little or no justice for those non-operative tranys who are denied reassignment surgery for medical reasons and it is a matter of some personal distress to me that such people could not be somehow included in the amendments to the Births, Deaths & Marriages Act. Despite my cares, reforms for these people could not be achieved and there seems little hope in doing so in the near future. Does this now mean however, that we should all gnash our teeth and wail together in purgatory until the day when such reforms can be made? We got the best possible deal for this draft amendment. Among our team are Public Relations Officers, Marketing Executives and Bank Managers. I am the Executive Director of a major sporting organisation, a part-time small business owner and an elite athlete with extensive media and advocacy experience so I can assure you that we are not without ample negotiating skills. I do not believe that non-operative tranys are churlish enough to wish us to mock back what we have achieved.

Non-operative tranys who have made this their lifestyle choice unfortunately carry little favour in the wider community and pollies are very aware of this. The politicians whom I have dealt with in this matter were all genuinely surprised that reforms for post-op tranys were not put into place many years ago. However, not one was in favour of the concept of altering the Births, Deaths & Marriages Act to include non-operative transsexuals. This leaves very little hope in this area for some time. In the meanwhile, non-operative tranys are afforded protection in the draft anti-discrimination legislation.

Welby's cries that we see legislation permitting us to change our documentation as some kind of reward or legitimisation for those who have had surgery is way out of line, we in T.A.G. have never sat around spinning such dreams. Put simply, there is nothing about me which is male, save my chromosomes and nothing about me that is not female save again for those microscopic chromosomes, so it is not a reward that I claim; it is my right!

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