Transgender rights in Australia
Transgender rights in Australia have legal protection under federal and state/territory laws, but the requirements for gender recognition vary depending on the jurisdiction.
[2] Changing legal gender assignment for federal purposes such as Medicare and passports requires only a letter from a treating medical practitioner.
[2] By contrast, most states and territories impose additional requirements for gender recognition that have been criticised by the Australian Human Rights Commission and LGBT+ advocates.
[1] Advocates argue that marital status and surgery requirements are irrelevant to the recognition of a person's sex or gender identity, and instead should rely on their self-identification.
[4] Gender reassignment surgery is available in Australia with the costs of some, but not all, treatments for transgender people covered by the national Medicare public health scheme.
[5] Edward de Lacy Evans (1830-1901) was a servant, blacksmith, and coal miner who publicly identified as male for the majority of his life, was registered as the father of his son, and referred to as "Dadds" and "Uncle" by his family members.
[7] The following year, he made his identity publicly known, such as by performing in the Melbourne Waxworks under the tagline ‘The Wonderful Male Impersonator',[8] or in Sydney as 'The Man-Woman Mystery'.
In 2012, Rebekah Robertson, when she was desperately searching for information that would help her to support her child Georgie, set out to establish the charity Transcend Australia.
[14][15][16] To prevent married transgender people challenging the "forced divorce" requirement on the basis that it discriminated against their marital status in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act, in 2011 the Gillard government introduced an exemption in section 40(5) of that Act allowing a State or Territory "to refuse to make, issue or alter an official record of a person’s sex if a law of a State or Territory requires the refusal because the person is married".
[17][18] Despite the exemption, both Australian Capital Territory and South Australia changed birth certificate sex markers for married transgender people before the introduction of same-sex marriage, with the latter repealing its "forced divorce" law in 2016.
[28] In 2014 trans man Paige Phoenix challenged the Victorian requirement for surgery on the basis that it would be potentially life-threatening, making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission and United Nations.
[29] South Australia abolished the surgery requirement in December 2016, while a similar proposal in Victoria failed in the Legislative Council by one vote.
This requirement was overturned when the High Court ruled, in the 2012 case of AB v Western Australia, that two transgender men who had undergone mastectomies and hormone treatment did not need to undergo sterilisation to obtain a WA gender recognition certificate.
[35] The Australian Capital Territory's 2014 birth certificate law amendments also allowed people to register as male, female or "X" regardless of whether they had undertaken any surgery.
In 2014, the Australian Capital Territory passed legislation that removed the surgery requirement for changing the sex marker on birth certificates.
[56] The New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages requires that transgender people must have "undergone a sex affirmation procedure".
[58][59] In January 2021, it was reported by the news media that transgender individuals who had not undergone sex reassignment surgery were banned from entering a ladies-only pool within Coogee.
[66] The Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender, which took effect from 1 July 2013, enable any adult to choose to identify as male, female or X.
[75] An independent review into gender-affirming care for minors commissioned by the New South Wales government and released in September 2024 found that puberty blockers are "safe, effective and reversible".
[83] Opponents of court involvement also indicated that some transgender teenagers were risking their lives sourcing cross-sex hormones on the black market due to the cost and delays caused by the legal process.
[5][93][94] In 2025, David Crisafulli, premier of Queensland said his government's freeze on hormone therapies for new patients under 18 and broad investigation into gender treatments would continue.
[100] Australia's compulsory superannuation scheme for retirement savings can be accessed early to cover the cost of surgery locally and overseas.
A few doctors require psychological or psychiatric evaluation before prescribing hormone therapy,[102] but the informed consent approach has made the process easier in recent years.
The case related to the exclusion of a transgender woman from a "women-only" social media platform, which the judge ruled was in violation of the Sex Discrimination Act.
[118] However, the program faced criticism in 2015 and 2016 from social conservatives including the Australian Christian Lobby, LNP politicians such as Cory Bernardi, George Christensen, Eric Abetz, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews, and former Labor Senator Joe Bullock for indoctrinating children with "Marxist cultural relativism"[114] and age-inappropriate sexuality and gender concepts in schools,[119] while others criticised the Marxist political views of Roz Ward, a key figure in the program.
[122] The concerns led to a review under the Turnbull government, which implemented a number of changes such as restricting the program to high schools, removing role playing activities and requiring parental consent before students take part.
[129] Binary Australia also vigorously campaigns against “gender-neutral or non-binary” birth certificates, sexual reassignment surgeries and other “experimental procedures” on children and minors - including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
[130] In 2023, Liberal senator for South Australia Alex Antic proposed a bill to ban gender reassignment surgery and treatment for teenagers.
