Page 694 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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This represented a significant departure legally from the situation across most Australian jurisdictions, including the ACT, which currently mandates sexual reassignment surgery in order for a person to be legally recognised as a sex or gender, other than that on their birth certificate. At a national level, of course, we have also seen a move away from the onerous and intrusive requirement for sexual reassignment surgery initially in relation to the recording of a change of sex on a passport. That policy change also saw a move away from the male-female binary to include a third category of sex and gender, or X, able to be recorded on a person’s passport.
In July 2013 the Australian government adopted these policies for recording sex or gender in personal records held by Australian government departments and agencies. The amendments made by this bill today seek to improve legal recognition of sex and gender diverse people in our community. The first substantive change is to extend the time for registration of a child from 60 days to six months. In its report, our Law Reform Advisory Council expressed a view that for a child that is known to be intersex at or soon after their birth, the legislation requires the decision must be made within short time limits to record the child’s sex.
The council recommends extending the period to six months to allow parents time to access information and make informed decisions about any steps that need to be taken to confirm a particular sex and gender identity for their child. Allowing parents additional time to make this decision reduces the stress on them and allows them to make a decision that is truly in the best interests of their child.
The bill also makes a number of changes to terminology that is no longer suitable or that is inconsistent with other legislation. For example, the bill removes the term “transsexual”. It is not necessary under the proposed framework and terminology.
Possibly the most significant amendment in this bill is the amendment to section 24, which currently requires a person to undergo sexual reassignment surgery to be able to alter their sex on their birth certificate. The bill removes that requirement. Invasive, dangerous and expensive sexual reassignment surgery is simply not necessary for a person to validly identify with a particular sex or gender.
In place of the sexual reassignment requirement, a person seeking to change a record of their sex must show that they believe their sex to be the sex nominated in the application and that they have either received appropriate clinical treatment for alteration of the person’s sex or they are an intersex person.
The same criteria will apply in the case of a child but with an added requirement that the person with parental responsibility making the application must believe that any change is in the child’s best interests. Following from the change in criteria, this bill, therefore, reduces the evidentiary burden on a person seeking to change their sex on their certificate. Under these amendments the only evidence required will be a statutory declaration signed by a doctor or a registered psychologist certifying that the person has received appropriate clinical treatment for alteration of the person’s sex or that that person is an intersex person.
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