When my sister, the youngest of five, was born  our mother – much to the irritation of our Police Sergeant father – was dithering in the baby-naming department. We kids – I was 13 years old at the time – wrote lists for our mother including top of breed cows’ names from the local show such as Princess Daisy II and Ramblin’ Rosie. When my mother finally decided upon ‘Joanne Marie’ my father bolted to the registry office and registered her birth.

Eighteen years later my sister applied for her passport. Thus she discovered her father had registered her at birth as a male. As our father didn’t drink we know he was sober at the time. He was, however, an impatient man and obviously he didn’t pay enough attention while ticking the boxes. You have no idea how difficult it is to change your gender on a birth certificate. My sister ended up with a dodgy document, which suggests she is either on a witness protect program or that she bought her birth certificate from cheapdocs.com.

Moral of the Story: Pay attention while filling forms or you may become gender confused.