with all due respect to the transgendered (and genderless?) persons reading this, I can't help but side with Australia. I get that this guy is, mentally speaking, genderless. I get that he can't control how he was physically born. But for the purpose of census documents, does it really matter? It's not like the government is going to publish a magazine at the beginning of every year called "Look at these guys who have gotten reassignment surgeries and decided to also go off their hormones thus becoming completely gender neutral, berate them because they are not legally on their birth certificate gender neutral Annual Revue"
"If I've got this certificate I can say 'your system has to accommodate the people it's there to serve, we don't have to chop ourselves up to fit the system', that's been my stance," Norrie said.
Then the question is, 'how do you figure?' It's not like the government does not recognize you as a living person because your birth certificate says M, but a doctor classifies you as genderless. It's not like the genderless can't vote, or drive, or get a job in Australia.
To look at this in the most practical way: Changing the document represents a material cost of creating new forms (paying people to create new forms) sending out new forms, updating databases, etc. Even if it only takes a couple of days to do, we're probably looking at a cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to correct a (relatively) minor issue to appease a handful of people. This is money that could have gone to healthcare, schools, education grants, or any of a number of other programs that would have served Australia's people better than accommodating an angry neuter who is pissed off over a single line on a document that noone in their social or professional life will
ever have to see.
