Nationality Australian | Occupation Author Name Norrie May-Welby | |
 | ||
Full Name Bruce Norrie Watson Known for Legal action to recognise non-specific gender | ||
Other names norrie mAy-Welby [sic] | ||
Australian marriage equality interview with norrie may welby
Norrie May-Welby (born Bruce Norrie Watson, 23 May 1961) is a Scottish-Australian transsexual person who pursued the legal status of being neither a man nor a woman, between 2010 and 2014. The High Court of Australia ruled in April 2014 that it was in the power of the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to record in the register that the sex of May-Welby was 'non-specific'.
Contents
- Australian marriage equality interview with norrie may welby
- Life
- NSW Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages v Norrie
- Australian Marriage Act
- References
At least two other Australians - both born intersex and including Alex MacFarlane - are known to have birth certificates and/or passports showing an indeterminate or unspecified sex as early as 2003.
Life
May-Welby was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland and was assigned male at birth. May-Welby moved to Perth, Western Australia at the age of seven. May-Welby underwent male-to-female "reassignment" surgery on 3 April 1989, but later found that being a woman was not what May-Welby felt like either.
May-Welby moved to Sydney, New South Wales in the early 1990s, after a highly publicised court case in Perth. Doctors stated, in January 2010, that May-Welby was a neuter, with a self-image that was neither male nor female, and no sex organs.
NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie
The New South Wales Government Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages initially recognized May-Welby as being neither male nor female with a registered details certificate stating "not specified" in 2010. However, the Registry rescinded its decision in a formal letter of cancellation on 17 March 2010. In response, May-Welby filed a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission and to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal ruled in favour of May-Welby but the Registrar appealed to the High Court. In April 2014 the High Court ruled that it was within the Registrar's power to record in the register that the sex of May-Welby was 'not specific'. The Court found that sex affirmation "surgery did not resolve her sexual ambiguity". In commenting on the four-year battle, May-Welby stated "It was swings and roundabouts, but I'm on Wikipedia now".
Australian Marriage Act
May-Welby and their partner featured on the first episode of Hatch, Match & Dispatch where they were seeking to obtain a marriage license. They could not legally do so because May-Welby is genderless, and the Australian marriage law states that marriage is between a man and a woman. May-Welby plans to protest this to the UN.