Male-Female married couples in Australia in which a transgender individual makes a physical gender transition so that the couple becomes a same-sex couple will no longer have their marriages annulled by the Australian government later this year, SX magazine reports:
“From July 1, the Federal Government will legally recognise same-sex marriages in cases where the marriage was originally registered between a male and a female, and one partner subsequently transitions. The change, brought about by the Same Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws) Act 2008, means that after that July 1, there will be legally-recognised same-sex marriages in Australia. Previously, couples in this situation faced ‘state-enforced divorce' as their marriages were dissolved when one partner transitioned. The change in policy was confirmed by the Federal Attorney-General's Department in a letter to Kathy Noble, founder and president of Changeling Aspects, a Queensland-based support group for transsexuals. In a letter to Noble dated January 19 this year, Peter Arnaudo from the department wrote: ‘While the reforms do not expressly address the sex or gender diversity of specific individuals, they ensure that … a transgender individual who remains married after surgery will not be deemed to be no longer married, as a result of the reforms.”
