Representing three transgender women and their spouses, the Legal Resources Centre has launched an application in the Western Cape High Court seeking to compel the Department of Home Affairs to amend their sex description on the national population register and on their birth certificates, and issue them with new identity numbers.
The individual applicants are all married in terms of the Marriages Act 25 of 1961, and have all applied to have their sex description amended on their birth certificates in terms of the Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 49 of 2003.
The LRC says the Department of Home Affairs refused to amend the sex description of its clients, arguing that the existing civil marriages, which are heterosexual, precluded the Department from amending the sex descriptor as it would amount to recognition of a same sex marriage under the Marriages Act.
In light of this reasoning, one of the couples' marriages was deleted from the National Population Register, while the other two were advised to get divorced in order to give effect to their gender identity rights.
The application is supported by Gender DynamiX, a civil society organisation advocating for the rights of transgender persons in South Africa.
