Australia'shighest court has ruled that a person can be legally recognised as gender neutral as opposed to male or female, ending a long legal battle by a sexual equality campaigner.

"The High Court... recognises that a person may be neither male nor female, and so permits the registration of a person's sex as 'non-specific'," it said in a unanimous judgement, dismissing a New South Wales state appeal to recognise only men or women.

The case centred on a person called Norrie -- who does not identify as either male or female -- who fought a legal battle for a new gender-neutral category.

Norrie, who uses only a single name, was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1989 to become a woman.

But the surgery failed to resolve Scottish-born Norrie's ambiguity about their sexual identity, prompting a push for the recognition of a new, non-traditional gender.

The campaigner made global headlines in February 2010 when an application to the NSW Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages accepted that "sex non-specific" could be accepted for Norrie's records.

But soon afterwards the office revoked its decision, saying the certificate was invalid and had been issued in error. At the time, Norrie said the decision felt like being "socially assassinated".

That sparked a series of appeals which resulted in the NSW Court of Appeal recognising Norrie as gender neutral last year, a decision which the High Court backed on Wednesday.

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