INTERSEX and transgender people will soon be officially recognised in the ACT, following a commitment to law reform by the ACT Government today.

Under the proposed changes, people will no longer have to undergo sexual reassignment surgery before they are allowed to change their registered sex, and the Birth, Deaths and Marriages Act will be amended to include “intersex” as a category, alongside male and female.

In legal terms, “sex” refers to a biological characteristic, and “gender” is defined as part of a person’s identity, which may or may not correspond with their sex at birth.

Attorney-General Simon Corbell said today that sex and gender diverse people often faced discrimination and barriers in the territory’s legal and record-keeping systems, as they were “simply not designed for anyone beyond the standard male/female categories”.

“The ACT Government is proposing reforms to overcome these barriers, and will seek to remove sexual reassignment surgery as a requirement for changing a person’s registered sex,” Mr Corbell said.

“References to sex and gender diverse people will also be progressively amended in legislation and data collection practices by public authorities to ensure accuracy and consistency, aiming to break down any linguistic barriers to legal recognition.”

The government would also extend the time allowed to register a newborn child, to reduce the pressure on parents of intersex babies, Mr Corbell said.

In total, the government has accepted 14 of 35 recommendations made by the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council (LRAC) last year in its “Beyond the Binary” report, into the issue of legal recognition for people who do not fit into the standard categories for sex and gender. A further nine points received in-principle support and two were partly supported in the government’s response.

Last year, the Australian arm of advocacy group Organisation Intersex International “wholeheartedly” supported the LRAC proposal to abolish the requirement for a person to undergo surgery to change their registered sex in the ACT.

But the intersex advocacy group opposed six other recommendations – three of which the government has supported today, and three that it supports “in principle”.

“OII Australia rejects the notion of a third sex, and we vehemently oppose the creation of any category called ‘intersex’ to which we are automatically assigned,” a statement on the organisation’s website reads.

“We believe there is an infinite combination of possibilities on the spectrum of sex and gender. We recommend the creation of as few categories and classifications as possible; ideally just one, not two, nor three.”