2020-08-06
The complainant identifies as non-binary and sought to have their gender identifier with two government agencies changed to ‘X’ and honorific changed to ‘MX’. The complainant said that neither agency would change their gender to ‘X’ or their honorific to ‘MX’. The complainant said one agency agreed to change their gender marker to ‘M’, which they prefer to ‘F’ and offered to have no honorific. The complainant said they found this very distressing and that they felt uncomfortable accessing services due to the way gender was identified in their records.
The agencies advised they were taking steps to introduce ‘X’ as a gender marker in their system, but given the complexity of this task, this may take some time.
The complaint was resolved with an agreement that both agencies change the complainant’s gender marker to ‘M’ until ‘X’ is available. The agencies also agreed that certain staff members would be required to undergo refresher training on gender identity discrimination. The agencies agreed to write to the complainant expressing regret for the incidents giving rise to the complaint.
Year
Discrimination type
Sex Discrimination Act
Grounds
Gender identity
Areas
Goods, services and facilities
Statement of regret
Named individual(s) to undertake anti-discrimination/EEO training
Amount