WA: all snips and tucks are required for gender reassignment surgery

Western Australia and South Australia are the only States that allow specific gender reassignment, without the need to show that you are unmarried (or in the case of Queensland, that if you were married that you have been married overseas).

The limitations of that approach have been seen in the case reported by the Australian, where two female to male transgendered people is appealing the refusal by WA’s Gender Reassignment Board to recognise them as male. This is because the Board apparently sees them as female, when:

• • each has had years of therapy (as is required before any gender reassignment surgery occurs);

• • each has had years of testosterone and intend to take that indefinitely;

• • each has had a double mastectomy; but

• neither has had a hysterectomy, meaning that in theory, according to the Board, they might be able to bear children and therefore were technically female.