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The ACT government is considering laws to recognise intersex and transgender people in identity documents. Attorney-General Simon Corbell hopes to introduce changes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act in the Legislative Assembly's final sitting week for the year later this month. The proposal would create a third category ''indeterminate, intersex, unspecified'' for birth certificates. The government also plans to remove the requirement for sexual reassignment surgery for people who want to change their gender on their birth certificate. The amendments were foreshadowed earlier this year in response to the Law Reform Advisory Council's ''Beyond the Binary'' report, which described the present rules governing alteration of birth certificates as ''inhumane''. The proposal for a third gender category would bring territory law into line with categories used by the federal government through the Australian passports office. Mr Corbell described the ''very important reform'' as ''unfinished business'' for the territory. He said although the government had taken significant steps on human rights issues such as same- sex marriage, it had ground to make up for Canberrans who were transgender, intersex, in transition between genders, or who did not identify as one gender or another. ''I think it's a necessary evolution of the law to reflect changing social expectations and acknowledgement of people who do not see themselves in the context of binary sex or gender,'' Mr Corbell said. ''This is a law that doesn't affect a lot of people but for the people it does affect it ensures their identity is appropriately presented in identity documents such as their birth certificate.'' Mr Corbell said the requirement for proof of surgery for a person to change their gender on their birth certificate would be replaced with a new requirement for ''proof of appropriate treatment'' from a psychiatrist or a psychologist. ''Right now we have situations where people present as women, for example, and all primary identification documents tell people they are a man,'' he said. ''Every time they open a bank account, every time they do something with their tax, employment, every basic thing where they have to present ID it is an intrusive, complex process for something so simple about how they identify.'' If passed by the Legislative Assembly the proposal would pave the way for amendments to the territory's new same-sex marriage law to allow for ''gender-diverse'' marriages. However, that move is contingent on the same-sex marriage law surviving the federal government's High Court challenge.

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