Page:Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 2003.pdf/2



Act No. 49, 2003 '''GENERAL EXPLANATORY NOTE

To provide for the alteration of the sex description of certain individuals in certain circumstances; and to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1992, as a consequence; and to provide for matters incidental thereto.

E IT ENACTED by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, as follows:―

Definitions

1. In this Act, unless the context indicates otherwise— “gender characteristics” means the ways in which a person expresses his or her social identity as a member of a particular sex by using style of dressing, the wearing of prostheses or other means;

“gender reassignment” means a process which is undertaken for the purpose of reassigning a person's sex by changing physiological or other sexual characteristics, and includes any part of such a process;

“intersexed”, with reference to a person, means a person whose congenital sexual differentiation is atypical, to whatever degree;

“medical practitioner” means a person providing health services in terms of any law, including in terms of the—

Allied Health Professions Act, 1982 (Act No. 63 of 1982);

Health Professions Act, 1974 (Act No. 56 of 1974);

Nursing Act, 1978 (Act No. 50 of 1978);

Pharmacy Act, 1974 (Act No. 53 of 1974);

Dental Technicians Act, 1979 (Act No. 19 of 1979); and

Mental Health Care Act, 2002 (Act No. 17 of 2002);

“primary sexual characteristics” means the form of the genitalia at birth;

“secondary sexual characteristics” means those which develop throughout life and which are dependant upon the hormonal base of the individual person;

“sexual characteristics” means primary or secondary sexual characteristics or gender characteristics.

Application for alteration of sex description

2. (1) Any person whose sexual characteristics have been altered by surgical or medical treatment or by evolvement through natural development resulting in gender reassignment, or any person who is intersexed may apply to the Director-General of the National Department of Home Affairs for the alteration of the sex description on his or her birth register.

(2) An application contemplated in subsection (1) must—

be accompanied by the birth certificate of the applicant;