In news today, VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) students like Castiel McIntosh are forced to register as either male or female. Timna Jacks writes:
School authorities struggled to accept the transition, which contributed to the teenager’s mental health problems. The 18-year-old said it was particularly confronting when the VCE authority insisted on registering the gender that was on the birth certificate.
This is a long-term problem that many in the Trans and genderqueer community experience day to day. The collection of gender markers seems arbitrary, and is apparently far from best practice. Anna Brown of the Human Rights Law Centre says:
Malta, Denmark, Argentina, Ireland and parts of Canada do not require “invasive and unnecessary surgeries before birth certificates can be changed
Victorian parliament is currently working on passing a bill to remove the need for surgery to change birth certificate gender markers. This will only apply to Victorian births, not other states.
It’s little comfort for Castiel however; they prefer gender neutral pronouns. And how many other students are being affected by this rule? Let us know in the comments below.
