Please, just call me Norrie, this is a whole new agenda
June 1, 2013
Paul Bibby
Court Reporter
http://www.theage.com.au/national/please-just-call-me-norrie-this-is-a-whole-new-agenda-20130531-2nhmo.htmlNorrie May-Welby who is a transgender person just won a landmark case in the Supreme Court today.
Tall, androgynous and decked out in a rainbow T-shirt, Norrie looked a little out of place among the dark-suited solicitors.
As the 52-year-old sexual equality campaigner later quipped, ''there's not that many of us 'odd bods' around''.
In an Australian first, the NSW Court of Appeal on Friday gave people who do not identify as male or female formal legal recognition.
It overturned a ruling that everyone must be registered as a man or a woman with the registry of births, deaths and marriages. Previously this right was restricted to passports.
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It is also likely to be drawn upon as a guide for cases interstate.
''This is the first decision that recognises that 'sex' is not binary - it is not only 'male' or 'female' - and that we should have recognition of that in the law and in our legal documents,'' said Emily Christie, one of Norrie's solicitors, from DLA Piper.
