Dear Hon Director General of Home Affairs.

It is with great urgency that we request you immediately grant relief to Nadia Swanepoel who has transitioned from male to female, by providing the requisite name and gender change and providing the new identity documents that law compels you to provide.

Nadia Swanepoel has spent 3 years trying to get your department to perform its legal duties under the Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 49 of 2003 (Act 49).

Ms. Swanepeol’s identity as a female who has transitioned is in full compliance with the legislation and one week of further delay on your part could cost MS. Swanepoel her life.

Her desperation for legal recognition by your department has resulted in a hunger strike, that could cost her life. At present she is not taking any food or liquids. She believes her life is not worth living if she is robbed of her true identity. She lives her life as a woman and is identifiable as a woman, yet is stuck with male identification.

The failure to reflect her identity as a female comes at enormous emotional and financial expense. She has found it difficult to find work without an authentic identity document. Her current identity document presents her as a male instead of a female. Such failure impacts her dignity and her ability to work, vote, renew a driving license, open bank accounts, enter into rental agreements/ loan contracts, and even to open a hospital file.

Kindly provide an urgent written notification that her new identity documents, reflecting her gender as female and her new name will be issued forthwith so we can bring an end to the hunger strike as a matter of extreme urgency.

The world is watching as we all consider this defiance by your Department as nothing more than prejudice and bigotry. Ms. Swanepoel is willing to die for this cause, and given enough delay, the Dept will be held accountable for her resulting ill health or death.

Please see Press reports :

Mambaonline - http://www.mambaonline.com/2014/10/09/home-affairs-drives-trans-woman-hunger-strike/ OBLOGDEE - http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2014/10/09/trans-woman-hunger-strike-as-south-africa-refuses-to-change-identity/ Mail & Guardian - http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-09-transgender-goes-on-hunger-strike-over-id-application

With respect, we expect your urgent attention to this,