Why Jasmine has to pretend to be someone else when she goes to work

At least six times each shift, security guard Jasmine Nightingale is forced to use a name that is not recognised by her family, friends or even her workplace. If she does not, she is committing a crime. Nightingale is a transgender woman.

She has not had gender reassignment surgery, which means even if she changed her name by deed poll her gender would remain male on her birth certificate. She would be known by an identity she spent 38 years trying to escape. Jasmine Nightingale says she is transgender, not a criminal.



If she uses her preferred name in an official capacity as a security guard, she is in breach of her licence, and therefore committing an offence. “I am transgender. I am not a criminal,” Nightingale said.

NSW is the only state in the country that still imposes the requirement that reassignment surgery is necessary to change gender on birth certificates. However, under an equality bill, which Sydney MP Alex Greenwich introduced to NSW Parliament more than a year ago, that requirement would go. Premier Chris Minns weighed into the issue on Wednesday, indicating he believed that the state could no longer force surgery requirements on transgender people who want to change their name.

“I don’t know why we’d be ...

demanding of people that they have irreversible life-changing surgery in order to change a government document in relation to their gender, particularly when you consider that they can go to the passport office and change it immediately,” Minns said. “So the passport says one gender, the NSW government document says something else.” The changes would be too late for trans teenager Bodhi Boele, who had a dying wish that his gender be recognised on his birth certificate.

In the weeks before his death, Bodhi’s mother, Heike Fabig, wrote to Minns and Attorney-General Michael Daley to detail her son’s pleas. But Bodhi died in May before any legislative changes could be made. Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown said ongoing delays to Greenwich’s bill had caused “unnecessary distress”.

“Trans and gender diverse people from NSW live with the nation’s most outdated and discriminatory laws,” Brown said. “What most Australians take for granted as a simple piece of paper can make a profound difference in the lives of trans and gender diverse people.” Nightingale works at a major utility company, which she says is hugely supportive of her gender identity.

However, the NSW Police’s security licensing and enforcement directorate – which is responsible for security licences – insists that Nightingale use the name on her birth certificate. “I must use my ‘dead name’ dozens of times each week on all official paperwork at work. Each log entry, timesheet, incident report, and police statement, I must use a name that affects my well-being,” Nightingale said.

“A sad irony is that I am faced with the ludicrous bureaucracy where various departments of the same state government work to different standards. While the NSW Police consider my life non-compliant, NSW Health has been amazing at accommodating my new identity.” Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights.

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