Getting married in Australia

At the present time in Australia, marriage is between a male and a female. Australian Federal Law (since reKevin¹) permits marriage between two partners who can present opposite-sex birth certificates (ie., one female birth certificate and one male birth certificate) at the time of marriage.

If you have a male birth certificate you can legally marry your female partner (who has a female birth certificate).

What was the Re Kevin case about?

This was a successful legal battle by a heterosexual Sydney couple, ‘Kevin’ and ‘Jennifer’ who secured the right to have their marriage legally recognised in 2003.

Australia has moved away from the biological view of sex.² Instead it bases the sex of a man on a group of factors at the time of his marriage. Australian law recognises there are cases where someone at birth may have had female gonads, chromosomes and genitals, at birth, but nevertheless is a man at the date of his marriage.

more about the reKevin decisions

References

1. Re Kevin: Validity of Marriage of Transsexual [2001] FamCA 1074 (‘Re Kevin’) and The Attorney-General for the Commonwealth v "Kevin and Jennifer" and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2003.
2. David F & Blight J (2004).

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Getting married in Australia

What was the Re Kevin case about?

References