Tag Archives: non-binary

Supporting the Institution of Marriage. A Trans Perspective

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Our unusual take on marriage equality for same-sex, transgender and intersex couples in Australia. Jenny and I can and will marry, but many others are simply not allowed to under the current law. See below for lots of links.

Unless the process gets struck down in the High Court on 5th & 6th September 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will conduct the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, using the names & addresses of voters on the electrol roll aged 18 years or older.

Below is the transcript of our Facebook video, made by Jenny and myself.

Jenny & Margaret
From Jenny & Margaret’s YouTube video, with background piano music by Margaret: “Rainbows Over Hovea.”

JEN: Hello. I’m Ms Jenny Nairn.

MDJ: And I’m Mix Margaret Jones.

JEN: My fiancée Margaret is an androgyne. I am a cisgender woman. Margaret and I make a great couple; all my family love her.

MDJ: It is wrong to claim allowing marriage equality for same-sex couples, and trans and intersex people, will erode or somehow damage the institution of marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth.

JEN: This debate is about marriage equality. It’s about two people who want to seal their relationship in marriage, regardless of their gender.

MDJ: In reality the campaign against marriage equality is an attempt to suppress us, to put us back in the bottle and make us invisible again.

JEN: Marriage rates for heterosexual and cisgender people, that is, non-transgender people, have been historically low for decades with fewer couples getting married and divorce rates high. This has had serious effects on families and extended families. I know this for myself as I have been divorced for fourteen years with two young children, and it was difficult! But I’m looking forward to getting married again.

MDJ: Allowing same-sex, transgender and intersex couples to use the civil contract known as marriage will enhance the concept of the family. LGBTI families form in many ways and they include blended families with children from previous relationships. These children should not be denied a happy and secure family life.

[Update: “Children of same-sex parents enjoy better levels of health and wellbeing than their peers from traditional family units, new Australian research suggests. In what they described as the largest study of its type in the world, University of Melbourne researchers surveyed 315 same-sex parents and 500 children about their physical health and social wellbeing.” See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-05/children-raised-by-same-sex-couples-healthier-study-finds/5574168 ]

Accepting the reality of our inherent or intrinsic equality as LGBTI people, because despite unequal treatment we are and always have been equal, and allowing us to marry, will surely boost the concept and practice of marriage.

JEN: Marriage, as a social contract pre-dates all modern religions by thousands of years and there is no reason why churches should have any veto over it. They do not have a monopoly on love.

Modern marriage is about love, and nurturing relationships, and I think we can all agree that these are good things. But, until very recent times marriage was not usually about love and caring at all. It was all about protecting women and children as objects owned by men—nothing to do with protecting women and children for their own benefit and nothing to do with loving couples. We want to marry for the modern reasons of love and nurturing.

MDJ: The current marriage law has caused great hardship to many transgender and intersex Australians. Often trans people are required to get divorced in order to change their legally documented sex or gender. Many of us have been forced to divorce our loved ones so we can change our official identification. This is much worse and more frustrating than you might imagine as these identification changes are crucial in many ways to our well-being, and the well-being of our families.

Some intersex Australians have birth certificates which identify their sex as ‘indeterminate,’ rather than as male or female. They may have no disability whatsoever, yet they may not [are not allowed to] marry simply because marriage is still only between a man and a woman.

It’s inappropriate to name a non-binary or enby [N.B.] person like myself as a ‘husband’ or a ‘wife,’ yet that is what the current law requires.

JEN: Some of us will marry in a religious ceremony because some of us are Christian (such as myself), orJewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist and so on. We might even use a church or some other place of worship.

Changing the law to enable marriage equality will help to save the modern social institution of two people in love coming together in a civil legal contract to properly secure the future of themselves and their families.

TOGETHER: Please vote YES
MDJ: for marriage equality in Australia for same-sex, transgender and intersex couples if you want to preserve and strengthen the institution of marriage.

TOGETHER: Vote YES
JEN: if you want to support children growing up in loving families with committed parents.

TOGETHER: Vote YES
MDJ: if you want all couples and their children to have the same rights to hospital visits, shared taxation, inheritance and many other entitlements.

JEN: When people are treated equally, everyone benefits. Let’s get equality for ALL couples in Australia who want to formally commit to each other.

Thank you.

MDJ: Please check you are registered for the postal vote by 24th of August 2017, and get your ballot posted back well before the 7th of November, that’s the deadline. Please see the links for more information on how to do that and for explanations of the terms we’ve used such as Mx (Mix), androgyne, cisgender, transgender, intersex, enby, and non-binary.

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Video written & spoken by Ms Jenny Nairn (cisgender woman) & Mx Margaret D. Jones (non-binary transgender enby/androgyne).

Music: Rainbows Over Hovea © 2016, composed & performed by Margaret D. Jones, MusB(UWA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA.

Please ensure you are registered for the Australian POSTAL plebiscite by 24 August 2017. To check your enrolment with the AEC, see https://check.aec.gov.au/

Ballot papers will start arriving in the mail from September 12. The postal vote closes 7 November. Please make sure you post it back promptly. Don’t let it gather dust!

To clarify: Although I’m an androgyne and the name on my birth certificate is “Margaret Dylan Jones,” I am legally male. This means Jenny and I can get married whenever we want, which is sadly not the case for so many other LGBTI people.

For links and info about the plebiscite/survey on marriage equality in Australia, and a brief glossary for the terms Mx (Mix), androgyne, cisgender, transgender, intersex, non-binary and enby, see http://mixmargaret.com/links/

See my major article about Mx or Mix, a non-binary transgender honorific title: About Mx, with Miss, Mrs, Mr, Ms, and the singular they

Marriage equality open letter

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Jenny & Mix Margaret

My letter to my local Federal Member of Parliament, Mr Ken Wyatt AM, MP, a member of the Liberal Party.

For readers outside of Australia: despite its name the ‘Big L’ Liberal Party is actually the right wing or conservative party, currently ruling Australia under Prime Minister Turnbull.

The letter was sent on 10 July 2017 via this website:
http://www.equalitycampaign.org.au/messagemp?
which said “Write your message … and it will be sent to your local MP.” You can do the same!

Dear Ken Wyatt MP

I grew up in Parkerville/Hovea in the 60s and 70s and now live in Sawyers Valley. I’m a well-known and highly respected local classical musician and teacher.

Please ensure any new marriage law covers any two consenting adults, not just opposite sex couples and same sex couples. This way non-binary and intersex people will be able to marry.

At the moment some of us can’t marry, while others can but they will be misgendered. When I marry my fiancé I want to do it right, I don’t want to have completely wrong words in it.

Ken, as a straight non-transgender man, can you imagine getting married as a ‘wife?’ Or getting married to a ‘husband?’ How wrong is that? This is the sort of misgendering which happens under the current law.

Marriage predates Christianity by a long way. For non-believers it is a contract and a powerful emotional commitment, but not a religious rite. Churches should not have power of veto over the Marriage Act; it doesn’t belong to them.

Of course, many same-sex couples and couples where one or both partners are non-binary or intersex are indeed religious. My fiancé is a Christian, while I am an atheist. There is no valid reason why we should be denied equality in the social contract of marriage.

We already know the vast majority of Australians are in favour of marriage equality and would vote in favour of it if a plebiscite were held. Despite this, some MPs have already said a ‘Yes’ vote in a plebiscite won’t make them vote for it in parliament, thus making a mockery of the case for a plebiscite.

Please do not appease the tiny vocal minority who want to delay justice by using a non-binding and expensive plebiscite. They are pushing a religious agenda and playing politics with people’s lives. A plebiscite would cause taxpayer-funded hate and misinformation to invade the Australian media, resulting in great harm to a large number of Australian families.

Respectfully

Mx Margaret D. Jones, androgyne (enby)
Sawyers Valley, Western Australia
Email via www.mixmargaret.com
MusB(UWA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA.
MIMT, AMC, WWCC

Non-binary in Census 2016

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The 2016 Australian Census was an obvious and very public debacle in several respects, but there was a positive side: it allowed non-binary and intersex people to be counted in a distinct way from male and female people.

2016 Australian census Q. 2

Q. 2: Non-binary transgender (Androgyne)

For the first time I was able to click a radio button for ‘Other’ in question two, instead of ‘Male’ or ‘Female.’ In the ‘please specify’ box I wrote: “Non-binary transgender (Androgyne).”

2016 Australian cenus feedback

Census feedback: Glad I didn’t have to lie.

This ‘Other’ option was only available in the online version if you requested a special login code for non-binary people.

2016 Australian census Q. 18

Q. 18: No religion

Another innovation was to put ‘No religion’ at the top of the options for religion in question 18. Apparently, the powers that be thought this would elicit a more accurate figure, and they may be right.

The improvement in the recording of non-binary status in the census is no doubt due to the advocacy and legal achievements of several gender pioneers in Australia over a long period of time, notably Alex MacFarlane, Norrie, and Tony Briffa. More recently Jamie Shupe has been succeeding in legal action in the USA.

Alex MacFarlane
In 2001 Alex, born many decades earlier in Victoria (Australia), was given a new birth certificate showing “Sex: Indeterminate also known as Intersex.”

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_MacFarlane :

“MacFarlane is believed to be the first person in Australia to obtain a birth certificate recording sex as indeterminate, and the first Australian passport with an ‘X’ sex marker in 2003.“

Norrie
Also from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_MacFarlane :

“[Norrie] became the first transsexual person in Australia to pursue a legal status of neither a man nor a woman, in 2010. That status was subjected to an appeal by the State of New South Wales. In April 2014 the Australian High Court ruled “that New South Wales laws do permit the registration of a category of sex other than male or female.” See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norrie_May-Welby

Tony Briffa
Also from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_MacFarlane :

“Tony Briffa JP previously acknowledged as the world’s first openly intersex public official and mayor, states on Briffa’s website that “my birth certificate is silent as to my sex.” See also www.briffa.org

Jamie Shupe (USA)
www.themarysue.com/oregon-court-nonbinary/ (June 2016):

“…an Oregon circuit court rules that resident Jamie Shupe could legally change their gender to nonbinary—the first U.S. court to do so.” See also transgender.wiki/jamie-shupe/

Like me Shupe uses Mx as a title, instead of Miss or Mr etc. Thus ‘Mx Jamie Shupe,’ and ‘Mx Shupe.’ I’ve been using Mx (pronounced ‘mix’), a non-binary transgender title, since 2002. See mixmargaret.com/about-mx-with-miss-mrs-mr-ms-and-the-singular-they.html

2016 Australian census Q. 36

Q. 36: Occupation: music teacher

If anyone in Australia has not yet done the census be aware it is compulsory and you can be fined. The deadline is 23 September, 2016. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) sent me this:

If you are using the online form and the responses of male and female do not apply to you, please take the following steps:
1. Call the Census Inquiry Service on 1300 214 531.
2. Ask for a Census Login for the special online form. You can receive your Login by SMS or email.
3. Use your new Census Login to complete your Census form at census.abs.gov.au

You could also ask the ABS if there is a special hardcopy form.