Change of gender for Medicare enrolments 011-44110020

Where a customer makes a request for Services Australia to amend their gender in CDMS, the:

• Customer must provide supporting documents that meet evidence requirements, and
• Service Officers must sight and check evidence submitted to ensure it meets the necessary requirements, before making any change to the gender records

For help, contact Medicare and Aged Care - Local Peer Support (LPS).

A customer must provide one of the following forms of evidence to establish or update the gender on their personal record:

• Statement from a Registered Medical Practitioner or Registered Psychologist specifying their gender
• Valid Australian Government travel document, such as a valid passport, specifying their gender
• State or territory birth certificate specifying their gender
• A document from a state or territory Registrar of Birth Deaths and Marriages recognising a change of gender. For example, a Gender Recognition Certificate or Recognised Details Certificate

Note: if a New Zealand person cannot provide one of the approved documents, a New Zealand Government issued document is acceptable.

Services Australia recognises that gender is part of a person's social and personal identity and is progressively working to implement the Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender.

Customers who identify their gender as being male or female can ask for a change to their records. It is acceptable to record the person's gender (male or female), in the Gender field, subject to evidence received.

Customers who are non-binary (X)

Customers who are non-binary (X) can request a change to their records. Currently Medicare's ICT systems cannot accommodate customers who want their records updated to reflect their gender as non-binary (X). However, systems are progressively being updated to include a non-binary (X) option.

See the Process page for how to amend the customer's CDMS record until this option is available.

Note: where a person's gender has been recorded incorrectly on CDMS, see Amend a person's Medicare enrolment details.

If a parent or guardian wishes to enrol their child as non-binary or intersex, see Newborn child enrolments in Medicare.

A person can enrol with a non-binary gender (X), subject to evidence received. However, Services Australia's Medicare ICT systems cannot accommodate customer records to reflect their gender as non-binary at this time. The customer must choose male or female to display on their record in CDMS until the gender (X) option is available.

Service Officers must update the Comments field at Personal level to record that the person is non-binary (X) by recording the text 'customer identifies as gender X'.