Tony Briffa (politician)


Tony Briffa is a Maltese-Australian politician who is notable for being the first known intersex mayor and public officeholder in the world.
Briffa has Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and is an independent councillor, formerly mayor and deputy mayor of the City of Hobsons Bay, Victoria.
Briffa was raised as a girl, then lived for a time as a man, and now chooses to live as both female and male. Briffa is one of the first people to be public about a chosen blank, indeterminate, birth certificate.

Early life

Tony Briffa was born with Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, raised as a girl and castrated at age seven to impose that assigned sex of rearing. Speaking to a 2013 Senate of Australia inquiry into the Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia, Briffa describes how doctors "convinced my mother to approve me to be castrated":

Career

Biffa has worked in positions with the Department of Defence and the Australian Federal Police. Tony Briffa is the world's first openly intersex public mayor, and "the first known intersex public office-bearer in the Western world", serving as Deputy Mayor of the City of Hobsons Bay, Victoria, between 2009 and 2011, and Mayor between 2011–2012. Briffa resigned as a local councillor on 14 February 2014, effective on the appointment of a successor. In October 2016, Briffa was re-elected to Hobsons Bay City Council.
Tony Briffa has previously served as the President of the Genetic Support Network of Victoria. Briffa is now co-executive director of Intersex Human Rights Australia and vice-president of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia; described as "the two leading groups advocating for the rights of intersex people in Australia".

Selected bibliography

Birth certificate

is popularly regarded as the first person with an indeterminate birth certificate, and "non-specific" sex was awarded by the High Court of Australia in April 2014 on the basis of May-Welby's failed sex affirmation surgery. However, Tony Briffa had previously obtained a birth certificate with a blank sex classification. Alex MacFarlane is believed to be the first. Speaking to the Senate hearing on intersex sterilisation in March 2013, Briffa said:

Pronouns

Briffa made the following statement: "I am very public about being born biologically partially female and partially male and that I was raised as a girl and lived as a woman until I was 30. I ask all my friends and colleagues to respect my sex as what nature made me; both female and male." On his website Briffa posted:
“I feel very comfortable having accepted my true nature. I am not male or female, but both. I am grateful for the years I lived as a woman and the insight and experiences it gave me. I am still ‘Antoinette’ and have now also incorporated and accepted my male side. I feel whole. I’ll continue to live as Tony but I feel I am now at a point in my life where I can celebrate being different.”
He also added that now that he has come to accept the male part of himself, he is now using male pronouns however continue to identify as neither male or female.

Marriage

Legal issues presented by Tony Briffa's non-specific birth certificate meant that Briffa could not lawfully marry in Australia until late 2017. On 27 September 2013, Tony Briffa married Manja Sommeling in Dunedin, New Zealand. Intersex Human Rights Australia notes: