Page 689 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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There are many Australians personally involved in the issues we are discussing. The statistics that I have heard suggest that about one in every 150 people have an experience of gender identity that does not accord with their sex at birth. Some of the submissions made to the beyond the binary inquiry set out the injustice that individuals feel at the current system. For example, to quote one individual submission:
It’s cruel, inhumane and totally unjust to make people have surgery to be recognized, when surgery isn’t an option for so many people for medical or monetary reasons or whatever their self-belief. Not being able to have the correct gender on certain documentation makes me feel uncomfortable and apprehensive about entering certain services. Which services? Anything I’d have to show my drivers license for!
The legislation today arose out of an inquiry that was conducted by the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council, LRAC, which I referred to a moment ago. This produced a report in 2012 called Beyond the binary. This referral to the LRAC was something I advocated for on the crossbench in the last Assembly. The Greens made a submission to the inquiry, so I am very pleased that it has evolved into these reforms today.
Passing the bill will provide a clear process for intersex people to change the sex on their birth certificate. In particular, it will mean that people will be able to amend their birth certificate to align with their identity without needing to have surgical intervention. Currently the Births, Deaths and Marriage Registration Act requires a person to undergo sexual reassignment surgery if they want to apply to alter the record of their sex. Removing this requirement is a very important recognition. As the Beyond the binary report points out, the surgery is expensive, is invasive and discriminates against people who choose not to or who are unable to have surgery. As well, the surgery is irrelevant to an intersex person who wants to correct the mis-assignment of sex.
The report is clear that there are serious human rights concerns with this requirement. It says that the requirement can rightly be said to be “inhumane” in that it violates a person’s human rights to privacy and to bodily integrity, the right to freedom from torture and the right to equal legal status unless they submit to invasive medical procedures. This is an issue that I raised in my submission to the beyond the binary inquiry on behalf of the ACT Greens, and I am very pleased to see that the change will now be formalised in legislation.
This onerous requirement has already been removed from the laws of several countries around the world where progressive gender identity laws have been implemented. New laws in Argentina, for example, explicitly say that, when changing one’s sex on the national identity card, “in no case will it be needed to prove that a surgical procedure for total or partial genital reassignment, hormonal therapies or any other psychological or medical treatment has taken place”. The UK has a slightly different approach. While the gender recognition process does not require applicants to undergo reassignment surgery, they do need to demonstrate that they have suffered the medical condition of gender dysphoria, that they have lived in the acquired gender for two years and that they intend to continue doing so until death.
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