Norrie, also known by the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

Norrie May-Welby, is a

Scottish-Australian Scottish Australians ( sco, Scots Australiens, gd, Astràilianaich Albannach) are ‌‍‍‍‍residents of Australia who are fully or partially of Scottish descent. According to the 2021 Australian census, 130,060 Australian residents wer ...

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

person who pursued the legal status of being neither a man nor a woman, between 2010 and 2014."Norrie May-Welby: The World's First Legally Genderless Person"
''The Huffington Post''. 18 March 2010.
''Daily Life Australia''. 8 November 2013 The

High Court of Australia The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises Original jurisdiction, original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Constitution of Australia, Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established fol ...

ruled in April 2014 that it was in the power of the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to record in the register that the sex of Norrie was 'non-specific'.

Life

Norrie was born in Paisley,

Renfrewshire Renfrewshire () ( sco, Renfrewshire; gd, Siorrachd Rinn Friù) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfr ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Norrie moved to

Perth, Western Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

at the age of seven. Norrie underwent

gender reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...

on 3 April 1989, but later found that being a woman was not what they felt like either."No sex for me, please! Ex-transsexual Australian Norrie May-Welby is first legally genderless person"
, ''New York Daily News''. 16 March 2010.
''The Telegraph''. 15 Mar 2010. Norrie describes their gender as androgynous. Norrie moved to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

in the early 1990s, after a highly publicised court case in Perth.'Audience Show and Tell' -

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...

Enough Rope ''Enough Rope with Andrew Denton'' (often shortened to ''Enough Rope'') is a television interview show originally broadcast on ABC1 in Australia. The title of the show came from the phrase " give someone enough rope and they'll hang themselves ...

'', 11 August 2003 Doctors stated in January 2010, that Norrie was a neuter, with a self-image that was neither male nor female, and no sex organs. Norrie publicly uses gender-neutral third-person pronouns, such as

singular they Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'' and ''themselves'' (or ''themself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an unspecified antecedent, in sentence ...

, but does not object to being referred to by feminine pronouns "as long as there are no imposed assumptions about reproductive biology coming along with them". In 2019, Norrie published the autobiographical book ''Ultrasex (Beyond Division)''.

''NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie''

The

New South Wales Government The Government of New South Wales, also known as the NSW Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of New South Wales. It is currently held by a coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party. The Governmen ...

Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages initially recognized Norrie as being neither male nor female, with a registered details certificate stating "not specified" in 2010. However, the Registry rescinded its decision in a formal letter of cancellation on 17 March 2010. In response, Norrie filed a complaint with the

Australian Human Rights Commission The Australian Human Rights Commission is the national human rights institution of Australia, established in 1986 as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and renamed in 2008. It is a statutory body funded by, but opera ...

and to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Norrie, but the Registrar appealed to the High Court. In April 2014, the High Court ruled that it was within the Registrar's power to record in the register that the sex of Norrie was 'not specific'. The Court found that sex affirmation "surgery did not resolve her sexual ambiguity". Regarding the four-year battle, Norrie stated, "It was swings and roundabouts, but I'm on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

now".

Australian Marriage Act

Norrie was featured on the first episode of ''

Hatch, Match & Dispatch ''Hatch, Match & Dispatch'' is an Australian factual television show narrated by Marta Dusseldorp that looks at the work of the staff from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages who are there to share in people's joy and hea ...

'', where Norrie was seeking to obtain a marriage license. Norrie could not do so due to being legally genderless, and the Australian marriage law at the time stated that marriage was defined as being between a man and a woman. Norrie planned to protest this to the UN. Though Norrie declined to do so, Norrie was told that they would be able to get married if they agreed to change their legal gender to "female".

Notes

References

Bibliography

* O'Keefe, Tracie and Fox, Katrina (eds.) (2003) ''Finding the Real Me: true tales of sex and gender diversity'' San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

External links

A Brief History of X: The Long Legal Battle for Sex: Not-Specified
{{DEFAULTSORT:May-Welby, Norrie LGBT writers from Australia LGBT writers from Scotland Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People from Perth, Western Australia Scottish emigrants to Australia Transgender writers Writers from Paisley, Renfrewshire Transgender non-binary people Non-binary writers