Respondents to Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys including the census will have the option to identify as neither male nor female but “other”, as the agency issued a new standard recognising a third category of both sex and gender.



The 2016 standard for sex and gender variables, released on 2 February, allows respondents to identify their biological sex and their gender identity as either male, female or “other”.

But identifying as of “other” sex will not be as simple as ticking a box. Both the paper and online version of the 2016 census will only display male and female options, as in previous years. The ABS spokeswoman told Guardian Australia those who wished to identify as “other” would be required to contact the census inquiry service to receive either a special login to do so online or instructions for how to fill in the paper form.

The ABS defined respondents of the “other” sex category as “persons who have mixed or non-binary biological characteristics (if known), or a non-binary sex assigned at birth”. It said the third category of sex was variously described as indeterminate and intersex.

“Other” in the gender category refers to “adults and children who identify as non-binary, gender diverse, or with descriptors other than man/boy or woman/girl”.

Respondents who select “other” may then be asked to specify their sex and gender further.

The ABS will report the number of Australians who report “other” as their sex along with other census information in mid 2017.

In a statement the ABS said the difference between sex and gender was not well understood because for 98% of the population their sex and gender are the same.

The new standard replaces rules issued in 1999 that allowed respondents to identify as “intersex or indeterminate” but did not distinguish gender from sex. The old standard stated that since numbers in the intersex or indeterminate category were likely to be very low, these people could have their sex reported as “not stated/inadequately described”.

The ABS spokeswoman said “a small number of respondents have been requesting the opportunity to report other than male/female on ABS household surveys” and the new standard would enable more efficient and effective collection of their sex and gender.

The executive director of Transgender Victoria, Sally Goldner, said the new standard was “unequivocally better” for trans people because there was now a separate focus on gender identity and more options than male and female.

Goldner said the ability to select “other” gender identity and specify further was “respectful to people that don’t want to use male or female, they can use gender queer, non-binary or whatever it is, it respects their specific identity” and added: “It also gives us further information for research and policy purposes.”

It was “disconcerting” the third gender identity option would not be visible on the census, Goldner said, as it was important that people be aware they had the option to specify their gender as “other”.

The co-chair of Organisation Intersex International Australia, Morgan Carpenter, said the “other” category would accurately describe some intersex people but “constructing intersex as part of the other sex field does the opposite of recognising diversity” because it implies all intersex people belong in the third category.

According to a 2015 Intersex Australia study of 272 Australians born with atypical sex characteristics, 52% were assigned female sex characteristics at birth and 41% male. Carpenter said as a result of being assigned a sex, socialised into one or through their own identification most people born with atypical sex characteristics now identified as male or female.

Collecting sex and gender information separately may help combat what Carpenter described as the misconception that sex characteristics dictate gender, which was “as bad for intersex people as for trans people”.

“Sex characteristics inform gender but they don’t dictate it,” Carpenter said.

In 2014 the high court ruled New South Wales had to recognise a third “non-specific” gender, in the long-running case of Norrie, who had been fighting since 2010 to have a sex change recognised as non-specific.