Most organisations when requesting information about a person's sex do not realise they are confusing this with gender. It must be realised that any organisation storing the sex of an individual is storing medical information. They need to safeguard and protect that information as if they were storing any other confidential medical information. In addition this requires ensuring only those with the correct qualifications can access that data. Restrictions are in place to ensure that the data is not deliberately or unwittingly made public or given to other organisations (including being shared within government organisations) without the express consent of the individuals.
Most organisations on realising that they have mismatched sex and gender can make a simple cosmetic change on their computer systems changing the wording (and/or internal column name) from sex to gender. Reports and screens can also be easily changed to reflect this change.
For organisations that believe their customer base might not understand the meaning of gender, they should provide an explanation
e.g. Gender (social presentation as male, female or other)
Its also important to note that only a qualified medical practitioner can determine the sex of a child at birth and sometimes that is not possible at that point in time. Its well documented that even an experienced doctor can make mistakes in determining the appropriate sex. Provisions are available to enable the sex on the birth certificate to be changed subsequently when these errors are realised.
When an organisation requests information regarding the sex or gender of an individual they should provide as options Male (M), Female (F) or Indeterminate (X). No organisation has the right to alter this value without the express permission of the
individual. An organisation can also not dispute the value entered even if they perceive it conflicts with the gender of the individual.
In the rare case that an organisation is entitled to legally request access to an individuals birth certificate or identity documents to validate the sex specified by the individual. Its important to state that they have no legal recourse to modify the gender as specified by the individual if they believe it conflicts with the identified sex, if they are additionally storing that data value. Refer to Section 7.