Norrie began life as a male, had surgery to remove his penis and hormone treatment, then tried living life as a woman.
But she found she wasn’t accepted as female by men or women. She became increasingly uncertain of her gender identity. She stopped the hormone treatments. When hooligans jeered at her for being a trannie, she responded “Well spotted!”
Norrie began investigating alternatives and concluded that she didn’t want an assigned gender, she wanted to escape the male-female binary and have a non-specific gender designation. She then launched legal action to have this option included on basic documents such as passports and birth certificates, as well as the usual male and female categories.
After years of struggle and disappointment, in May last year the High Court decided that a non-specific gender designation on passports and other basic documents is legal, and Norrie’s battle was won.
The ramifications of this decision are enormous, not only for people in Norrie’s situation as adults, but for babies born with a non specific gender. The conventional response to these children is for parents and doctors to decide as quickly as possible if they are to be designated male or female, then to surgical and chemically embed them in the chosen gender. Now such children can be legally registered with a non specific gender designation, giving parents time to consider the best option for their child.
Norrie has smashed the constricting male-female binary, and brought legal acknowledgement of difference for gender diverse and intersex people. Norrie rejected life as a man and life as a woman, and chose life without orthodox binary gender performance.
No Place For Sheep 
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