Lesbians accuse Australia of ‘lazy homophobia’ over child passports
A lesbian couple has attacked Australia’s government for only offering child passport forms with “mother” and “father” options.
The couple, Jessica Boyd and Liz Williams, plan to go on holiday with their baby Grace this month.
But they said it is a “joke” that the Australian Government has not updated the forms with which to apply for a child passport.
The forms still only asks for the details of a “mother” and a “father”, and hasn’t been updated to include same-sex parents.
Boyd, 34, says the government should make it a priority to have the form updated.
She said as well as it being exclusionary that it was confusing because she wasn’t sure how to fill in the form.
Grace’s birth certificate lists Boyd as ‘mother’ and Williams as ‘parent’ so the two options don’t line up.
“As a government institution, I am just baffled they don’t at the very least update the text on the online form to ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’, or something like that, as that is so easy to do,” Boyd said.
“It’s lazy homophobia. She acted like it wasn’t a big deal on the phone… It doesn’t seem like a big deal to them, because nobody has stood up and told them it’s offensive.”
Boyd also says she is disappointed the form has not been updated since Australia legalised same-sex marriage last year.
She also said the forms do not cater to non-binary people and that the use of the term ‘maiden name’ is also outdated.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the reason the form had not been updated was because of plans to launch online applications.
“DFAT is developing a new online application process with updated terminology to reflect the diversity of Australians with parental responsibility,” they said.
“The new online application process will be available to families in Australia this year. In the meantime, DFAT encourages clients to cross out and over-write parental terms on the hard copy forms to reflect their actual circumstances.”
Nepal back in 2015 joined the few countries which allow third gender passports, as it issued its first one.
