The New South Wales parliament has passed laws that remove the requirement for people who are transgender and married to seek a divorce before applying for their gender to be officially changed.

The change follows the passage of marriage equality late last year, and is part of steps to ensure that transgender people are not forced to choose between divorcing the person they love and having identification that doesn’t reflect who they are. Currently people are required to be unmarried if they wanted to change their gender.

Western Australia is now one of the few states to maintain laws requiring transgender people to be single before applying for gender change.

Attorney General John Quigley has referred the issue to the Western Australian Law Reform Commission in January.

A spokesman for the Law Reform Commission previously told OUTinPerth that they expect the discussion paper on the proposed changes will be released mid-year, and will allow people to provide feedback on the proposed changes.

Interested parties however do not have to wait until the discussion paper is released and are free to put forward submissions to the Law Reform Commission.

The commission expects to complete its review by the end of 2018.

OIP Staff