BREAKING: NSW Minns Labor Government ignores community concerns to back sex self-ID laws

BREAKING: NSW Minns Labor Government ignores community concerns to back sex self-ID laws

By Rachael Wong

In a puff piece in the Sydney Morning Herald promoting sex self-ID laws this week, NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has confirmed his support for such laws, which would allow anyone to change their legal sex (including children) on their birth certificate. This is despite overwhelming opposition from NSW residents concerned in particular about the adverse ramifications for women and children, including that expressed in an official parliamentary survey and petition.

Until now, the NSW Labor Government has not stated a position on independent MP Alex Greenwich’s “Equality” Bill introduced last August, which includes the introduction of sex self-ID, further liberalised prostitution and overseas commercial surrogacy, among other harmful reforms.

However, this week, I was told that the Government will begin to at least consider the proposed sex self-ID reforms next week. This means sex self-ID could be debated within the next two sitting weeks of Parliament, before the Bill is due to lapse on 31 October. The parliamentary petition with over 25,000 signatures calling on the NSW Parliament to reject the Equality Bill is also due to receive a response by that date.

On the issue of sex self-ID, Minns says:

“I don’t know why we’d be ... demanding of people that they have irreversible life-changing surgery in order to change a government document in relation to their gender, particularly when you consider that they can go to the passport office and change it immediately.”

Let’s unpack a few things:

1.  Minns referring to transgender operations as ‘irreversible life-changing surgery’ is about the most honest point made in the piece, and it’s interesting he uses this terminology when trans activists and proponents of sex self-ID laws often try to dismiss the experience of detransitioners who say that social transitioning (which includes changing one’s sex or gender on legal documents) led them down a pathway of harmful and irreversible medical transitioning.

2.  No one is ‘demanding’ that anyone have ‘irreversible life-changing surgery’. Those opposed to sex self-ID laws are, however, deeply concerned that such laws facilitate social transition which in turn encourages gender-confused individuals, particularly vulnerable children and young people, down a path of harmful medical transition including ‘irreversible life-changing surgery’. Of particular concern are provisions in the Equality Bill which allow children, in some cases, to change their legal sex without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

3.  In fact, those opposed to sex self-ID laws often don’t support any change to legal sex, as when males can legally identify as female, this has devastating implications when it comes to privacy, safety, dignity and fairness for women and girls, including the effective eradication of female-only sports, services and spaces (including toilets and changerooms, prisons, hospital wards, rape crisis centres, and domestic violence refuges). It also has problematic implications for data recording and the provision of healthcare, among other implications, and does not correspond with reality.

4.  The ‘government document’ Minns insists people should be able to easily change, is a person’s birth certificate. A birth certificate is a legal and historical record of fact. He notes that a person can already ‘go to the passport office’ and change their sex or gender ‘immediately’. The fact that controversial allowances have already been made does not justify further ones. Indeed, the fact that other documents are so easily changed, is even more reason to maintain the historical and accurate record of an individual’s sex on their birth certificate.

5.  Nowhere in his comments does Minns acknowledge the impact of sex self-ID laws and policies on women and girls, despite Women’s Forum Australia and other women’s advocates providing ample information and evidence about the harms of sex self-ID laws and policies on their safety and rights. These include anything from lost opportunities when it comes to female-only sport and awards, to self-exclusion by women and girls from female-only spaces due to privacy and safety concerns, to actual rape and sexual assault in female-only spaces like prisons and hospital wards by men identifying as women.

Sex self-ID laws present an irreconcilable collision of rights between women, and men who identify as women. It is unconscionable that Minns and his Labor Government are willing to accept the erasure of women’s and girls’ sex-based rights in deference to the self-perceptions and preferences of males who identify as female.

Those struggling with gender dysphoria and who identify as transgender deserve care and respect like any other individual, but sacrificing the hard won rights of women and girls and enshrining a lie in law is not the way to achieve this. The argument that 'every other state has done it' (aka erased women's rights) is simply not good enough.

It is time our leaders acknowledge the reality that human beings cannot change sex, and provide genuine support and care to those whose self-perceived ‘gender identity’ does not align with their biological sex, which is often the result of unaddressed mental health issues and trauma. Perhaps then, we will make some genuine progress in achieving wellbeing, protection and equality for all.

Rachael Wong is the CEO of Women's Forum Australia.

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Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.

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