Sydney: World Pride and Legal Prejudice

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Alastair Lawrie

Well, it’s official. When Sydney World Pride kicks off in less than a fortnight, it will be held in the jurisdiction with the worst LGBTIQ laws in Australia.

This incontrovertible fact is not surprising to anybody who has been paying attention. But it is still shocking to observe all of the different forms of legal prejudice which still exist in NSW. And, as always, the most vulnerable members of our community are the ones left paying the price.

This includes all those let down by the worst anti-discrimination legislation in the country.

The NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 is already the only anti-discrimination law which fails to protect bisexuals against discrimination.

With legislation currently before Queensland Parliament, and a recent promise by the Western Australian Government to implement WA Law Reform Commission recommendations there, NSW will also soon be the only place which fails to protect non-binary people.

And the only place with no explicit intersex protections either.

The Anti-Discrimination Act’s exceptions which allow ‘private educational authorities’ to lawfully discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers remain the broadest in Australia too.

Once again, the WA Government’s promised response to their Law Reform Commission, and the current Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984, mean it is highly likely, by the end of this year, NSW will retain the only anti-discrimination law which fails to protect LGBTQ young people.

When it comes to the LGBTIQ community, the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act permits more discrimination than it prohibits.

Trans and gender diverse people in NSW are also subjected to out-dated and overly restrictive birth certificate laws.

It is currently one of only two states that still require transgender people to have genital surgery in order to access identity documents which reflect their gender identity – but the other, Queensland, has a Bill before Parliament to remove this unnecessary barrier.

A third jurisdiction, Western Australia, also requires physical treatment of some kind (such as hormone therapy) although the WA Government recently committed to reform their laws.

Unfortunately, the NSW Government has made no such promise here, effectively abandoning trans people who either cannot afford (because of the prohibitive costs involved) or do not wish to undergo surgery, as well as people with non-binary gender identities.

NSW’s laws fail the LGBTIQ community in two other areas which are no less important.

First, there is no ban on sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices in NSW.

Victoria and the ACT have already banned these dangerous and harmful psychological practices, while Queensland has partially banned it (in health settings only). Other jurisdictions, including Tasmania and Western Australia, have promised to outlaw it. But ‘ex-gay’ and ‘ex-trans’ torture remains legally permitted in NSW today.

Second, there is no prohibition on non-consenting surgeries and other unnecessary and deferrable medical interventions on children born with variations of sex characteristics in NSW either.

These are horrific and ongoing human rights abuses, denying the fundamental right to bodily integrity of intersex infants. Just as horrific is the fact no Australian jurisdiction has, to date, ended these practices.

Thankfully the ACT Government will shortly become the first, with legislation expected to be introduced in the first half of 2023.

Once again, however, there have been no promises, and no signs of movement, on this issue from the NSW Government.

The current appalling situation in these four areas (LGBTIQ anti-discrimination laws, trans and gender diverse birth certificates, sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices, and non-consenting surgeries and other medical interventions on children born with variations of sex characteristics) constitutes nothing less than a crisis in LGBTIQ rights in NSW.

To some extent, it is a crisis that has emerged, and worsened, only gradually over time, thanks to the inaction of successive Governments of both persuasions (especially in relation to the broken Anti-Discrimination Act).

However, with the O’Farrell/Baird/Berejiklian/Perrottet Liberal-National Government about to celebrate 12 years in office, they must clearly shoulder a significant share of the blame.

Indeed, the last LGBTIQ-specific law reform which the Coalition implemented was way back in 2018.^[i] That means they passed exactly zero LGBTIQ-related laws during the entire parliamentary term which has just ended.

By way of contrast, the Victorian Government reformed their Equal Opportunity Act (to better protect trans, non-binary and intersex people, and protect LGBTQ students and teachers), updated trans birth certificate laws, and banned conversion practices, all in the same period (2019-22).

To be fair, during the past term the Berejiklian/Perrottet Government did initiate a Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes (although they rejected community calls for this to be constituted as a Royal Commission, and it obviously remains to be seen what the practical outcomes of the Inquiry will be, if any).

The NSW Government also ultimately rejected Mark Latham’s legislative attack on trans kids. Although that was only after a parliamentary inquiry in which all three Coalition Committee members supported his Bill, and an 18-month public debate during which trans kids and their families felt abandoned. Plus, as I wrote at the time, not going backwards (by rejecting Latham’s Bill) is not the same thing as going forwards (like pro-actively addressing all of the ways in which NSW law still discriminates against trans and gender diverse people).

Perhaps the only unequivocally positive achievement during the term was the development and launch of the NSW LGBTIQ+ Health Strategy 2022-27, which contains a number of important initiatives.

However, no amount of health programs can remove the legal prejudice which confronts LGBTIQ people in NSW – only Government, and Parliament, can do that.

On that note, I find it incredibly curious, and probably revealing that, despite knowing World Pride was headed to Sydney since October 2019, the NSW Government took exactly zero steps to fix any of the four major deficiencies in LGBTIQ rights in this state. They were apparently content for the spotlight to fall on NSW and proudly show their failures to the world.

With the state election on March 25 (less than a month after World Pride finishes), perhaps they thought we would be satisfied with the ‘bread and circuses’ of the coming weeks. Or, to adapt another Roman saying, maybe they believed we would be happy to just dance while our human rights burn.

Well, they might soon discover they were badly mistaken.

[UPDATE 17 February 2023: Following pressure for Independent Member for Sydney Alex Greenwich MP, who has developed his own legislation to ban conversion practices, and a promise by the Labor Opposition to do the same if elected, Premier Perrottet finally expressed ‘in-principle support’ for a ban. However, there remains no detail to this expression of support, including whether it specifically includes gender identity conversion practices, or whether it will cover all sites where conversion practices occur, including religious settings.

UPDATE 23 February 2023: This week, Premier Perrottet wrote to faith leaders to reassure them any bans on conversion practices would not affect religious freedoms, as well as telling a community forum: ‘We will not ban prayer. We will not ban preaching. That is fundamental to freedom of religion.’ In effect, it seems likely any ban by a re-elected Liberal Government would therefore exclude religious settings, where the vast majority of harm is caused. In which case, a Perrottet conversion practices ban would not be worth the paper it is printed on.]

Again, to be fair, this is not to let the NSW Labor Opposition off the hook either.

They were also missing in action in terms of defending our community from Mark Latham’s legislative attack on trans kids, with neither of their Leaders (Jodi McKay and Chris Minns) prepared to publicly condemn it, and one of the two ALP members of the parliamentary Committee actively supporting it.

After 12 years in Opposition, and less than seven weeks out from the election, they also don’t have a comprehensive LGBTIQ policy agenda. Indeed, based on Chris Minns’ ‘Fresh Start Plan’, and the issues listed on his website (https://www.chrisminns.com.au/issues), they don’t appear to have any specific LGBTIQ election policies at all.

Having said that, they do commit to referring the Anti-Discrimination Act to the Law Reform Commission for ‘holistic review’, although the policy (here: https://www.chrisminns.com.au/reviewantidiscriminationact) doesn’t make any detailed commitments in relation to LGBTIQ inclusion, such as protecting LGBTQ students or teachers, or covering bisexual, non-binary or intersex people (while specifically noting ‘the need to address discrimination on the basis of religion.’)

The Policy Committee Report to last year’s ALP State Conference also suggests ‘an incoming NSW Labor Government will work with relevant government agencies and other stakeholders to ban gay conversion therapy in NSW.’ But this is problematic, not just because it is silent on gender identity conversion practices, but also because it goes on to note ‘any proposed legislation to ban gay conversion therapy must not outlaw individuals voluntarily seeking out medical, health, allied health or other advice and assistance regarding their personal circumstances’.

[UPDATE 11 February 2023: Today, Opposition Leader Chris Minns committed a Labor Government to banning LGBTQ+ conversion practices. Importantly, this includes both formal and informal practices, covers LGBTQ+ (rather than just sexual orientation), and features a commitment to work with survivors in drafting the legislation. More details here.

UPDATE 27 February 2023: Unfortunately, just like Premier Perrottet before him, today Opposition Leader Mines ‘reassured’ faith leaders that the ALP’s ban on conversion practices would not impact ‘religious freedom’. His quote, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Taking offence at the teachings of a religious leader will not be banned, expressing a religious belief through sermon will not be banned, and an individual, with their own consent, seeking guidance through prayer will not be banned either.’ This means the ALP’s ban will also only be partial, and therefore only partially effective.]

While there still appears to be no ALP commitments in relation to trans access to birth certificates, or ending medical interventions on intersex kids.

This situation, in 2023, is simply not good enough. The LGBTIQ community of NSW deserves much better, from the Government and the Opposition.

I should clarify here that this article is by no means a criticism of Sydney World Pride, or of its organisers.

Celebrating pride is a worthy and important activity, in and of itself, especially if it contributes to long-lasting culture change. Sydney World Pride’s focus on First Nations LGBTQIA+SB people, as well as human rights in the Asia-Pacific, are both welcome. And, on a personal level, I’m genuinely looking forward to a fortnight of queer cultural events and parties (the tiredness that will inevitably follow, perhaps less so).

However, when the glitter has been swept up, and the paint from the rainbows which have been painted across Sydney starts to crack and fade, we will still be left living under the worst LGBTIQ laws in Australia.

Laws which mean a gay student who simply holds his boyfriend’s hand at Fair Day could be expelled the very next day.

Laws which allow a school to sack a teacher just for marching with her wife and children in the Rainbow Families float in the Mardi Gras Parade.

During World Pride, trans and gender diverse people will have the opportunity to walk across the Harbour Bridge. But most still won’t be able to walk into the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to update their birth certificate simply to match their gender identity.

It is also likely many LGBTQ people will begin their ‘coming out’ journey over the next month, inspired by the visibility of World Pride. But if they’re in NSW and don’t have a supportive family and/or community, they could still be subjected to sexual orientation or gender identity conversion practices – entirely lawfully.

Finally, Sydney World Pride will bring much celebration of the human body, and the joy it can bring. But – tragically – in 2023, NSW continues to allow violations of the bodily integrity of children born with variations of sex characteristics.

So, by all means celebrate during Sydney World Pride, including the achievements that have already been won, and our resilience in the face of ongoing oppression. I know I will.

But we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from the challenges which remain, challenges which are especially acute right here in NSW.

What better time then to raise our voices, loudly, passionately, as a community, to tell the Government, and Opposition – and anybody else who is seeking our vote on 25 March – that our community deserves better than the legal prejudice which we currently endure?

NB This post is written in a personal capacity, and does not reflect the views of employers past or present, nor of any community organisations with which I am involved.

If you have enjoyed reading this article, please consider subscribing to receive future posts, via the right-hand scroll bar on the desktop version of this blog or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus

Footnotes:

^[i] In 2018, the then-Berejiklian Government passed two LGBTIQ-related reforms:

-the first ended forced trans divorce (although they were effectively compelled to do this following the passage of marriage reforms federally), and

-the second replaced homosexual and transgender serious vilification offences in the Anti-Discrimination Act with sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status ‘threatening or inciting violence’ offences in the Crimes Act (although my understanding is that these offences have yet to be used).

NSW Equality Bill Submission

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

4 July 2022

Alex Greenwich

Member for Sydney

Via email: sydney@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Dear Mr Greenwich

Submission re Equality Bill Consultation

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this personal submission as part of your consultation process on a proposed Equality Bill.

Thank you also for your leadership on the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) rights in NSW, something which has been neglected by too many for far too long.

As I have written previously, LGBTIQ rights in NSW are now the worst of any state or territory in the country – through decades of inaction on law reform by the NSW Government and Parliament, Sydney has become Australia’s capital of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

This includes the worst LGBTIQ anti-discrimination protections, and the equal worst birth certificate laws for trans and gender diverse people. As well as an ongoing failure to prohibit non-consenting surgeries and other medical interventions on children born with variations in sex characteristics (intersex children), and to ban sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices.

If these issues are not addressed before next February, then Sydney’s hosting of World Pride 2023 will not be a cause for celebration, but instead the focus of global embarrassment about the incredibly poor state of legal rights for the LGBTIQ people who live here.

In this submission I will make recommendations for reform in the above-mentioned four areas, with a particular focus on LGBTI anti-discrimination law reform, as well as in relation to commercial surgery.

LGBTI reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW)

The NSW Anti-Discrimination Act was once a leader – including becoming the first anti-discrimination law in Australia to prohibit discrimination on the basis of homosexuality in 1982 (before homosexuality was even decriminalised here, which did not happen until 1984).

However, it now compares incredibly poorly across a wide range of criteria, from protected attributes, special privileges for private schools and special privileges for religious organisations generally (for comparative analysis of how it fares overall, see A Quick Guide to Australian LGBTI Anti-Discrimination Laws).

While the Act itself is now so out-dated that it is impossible for it to become best practice without a comprehensive review followed by complete overhaul, there are some immediate, interim steps which could be taken to ensure LGBTI people are better protected against discrimination on the basis of who they are. This includes:

1. Replace homosexuality with sexual orientation

NSW is the only jurisdiction in Australia which does not prohibit discrimination against bisexual, bi+ and/or pansexual people. That is because the protected attribute in the Anti-Discrimination Act is ‘homosexuality’ rather than sexuality or sexual orientation.

This should be replaced with a protected attribute of ’sexual orientation’, with a definition drawing from s4(1) of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic):

‘sexual orientation means a person’s emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, or intimate or sexual relations with, persons of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender.’

2. Replace transgender with gender identity

NSW also offers extremely narrow protection against discrimination for trans and gender diverse people, effectively excluding people with non-binary gender identities completely.

The protection attribute of ‘transgender’ should be replaced with ‘gender identity’, with a definition again drawing from the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic):

‘gender identity means a person’s gender-related identity, which may or may not correspond with their designated sex at birth, and includes the personal sense of the body (whether this involves medical intervention or not) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech, mannerisms, names and personal references’.

The definition of ‘recognised transgender person’ in section 4 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) should be removed at the same time.

3. Add a new protected attribute of sex characteristics

Intersex people are also poorly-served by anti-discrimination laws in NSW, with the Act failing to include a stand-alone protected attribute to prohibit discrimination against them.

A new protected attribute of ‘sex characteristics’ should be added, once again drawing from the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic):

‘sex characteristics means a person’s physical features relating to sex, including-

(a) genitalia and other sexual and reproductive parts of the person’s anatomy; and

(b) the person’s chromosomes, genes, hormones, and secondary physical features that emerge as a result of puberty.’

4. Add new protected attributes of sex work, and genetic characteristics

I support-in-principle the inclusion of protected attributes of sex work, with a definition developed in consultation with sex worker organisations such as Scarlet Alliance, and genetic characteristics, developed in consultation with Intersex Human Rights Australia.

5. Remove special privileges for private educational authorities

The Anti-Discrimination Act is the only such law in the country which provides blanket exceptions to all private schools, colleges and universities, irrespective of whether they are religious or not, allowing them to engage in conduct that would otherwise be prohibited.

This includes special privileges to discriminate on the basis of homosexuality against students (s49ZO) and teachers and other staff (s49ZH), and on the basis of transgender status against students (s38K) and workers (s38C), too.

There can be no possible justification for these special rights to discriminate in 2022 – they must be repealed entirely.

In order to ensure LGBT students, teachers and other staff at religious schools are properly protected against discrimination, it is also necessary to introduce a limitation on the general religious exception in section 56 (discussed further below), so that it does not apply to religious educational institutions.^[i]

6. Significantly narrow special privileges for religious organisations

In addition to specific exceptions for private schools, colleges and universities, s56 of the Anti-Discrimination Actprovides incredibly broad exceptions for religious organisations more generally.

While paras (a) and (b) of that provision (which permit discrimination in relation to the appointment, and training, of priests and ministers of religion) may be justifiable on the basis of religious freedom (because of their closeness to religious observance), the same justification does not apply to para (c), which allows discrimination by religious organisations in employment (including in the delivery of publicly-funded health, housing and welfare services) and (d), which effectively grants faith bodies a blank cheque to discriminate in service provision.

Both para s56(c) and 56(d) should be repealed entirely.^[ii]

7. Remove special privileges for faith-based adoption services

Under s59A of the Anti-Discrimination Act, adoption agencies operated by religious organisations are permitted to discriminate against rainbow families.

This is frankly outrageous, not only discriminating against prospective parents on the basis of irrelevant factors such as their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, but also not being in the best interests of the child, given the exclusion of loving parents on these grounds.

S59A should be repealed entirely.

8. Remove the specific transgender exception in superannuation

Under s38Q of the Act, superannuation providers are given an exception to discriminate against transgender people, by ‘treat[ing] the transgender person as being of the opposite sex to the sex with which the transgender person identifies.’

This type of provision is not found in the equivalent Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).

Once again, there can be no possible justification for this special right to discriminate in 2022 – this provision must be repealed entirely.

9. Significantly narrow the specific transgender exception in sport

Under s38P of the Act, it is lawful to discriminate against transgender people in relation to a wide range of sporting activities, from elite level through to community sport.

This exception is much, much broader than equivalent exceptions elsewhere, including s42 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), which includes qualifications that such discrimination is only permitted ‘in any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant’, and does not apply to children under 12.

At a minimum, these qualifications should also be introduced in NSW, with consideration of adopting the narrower approach found in s29 in the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (Tas), or the proposed changes in this area in the ACT Government’s recent Exposure Draft Discrimination Amendment Bill 2022.

Any reforms in this area should be made in close consultation with trans and gender diverse people, and organisations representing them, and intersex people and their representative bodies as well (given the impact of sporting exceptions on that community).

10. Prohibit civil vilification on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics

Assuming changes are made to replace the protected attributes of homosexuality with sexual orientation, and transgender with gender identity (1 and 2, above), equivalent changes to civil vilification provisions under the Anti-Discrimination Act should be made at the same time.

I also support introducing civil prohibitions against vilification on the basis of sex characteristics.

11. Ensure consistency between the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 and the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW)

If the civil vilification provisions of the Anti-Discrimination Act are updated to cover sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, equivalent amendments should be made to s93Z of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW),^[iii] which makes it a criminal offence to ‘by a public act, intentionally or reckless threaten or incite violence towards another person or a group of persons’ on the basis of a range of attributes.

Reforms to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 (NSW)

As noted above, NSW also has the equal worst birth certificate laws in the country. It is one of just two jurisdictions, alongside Queensland, which still requires transgender people to have genital surgery in order to access identity documentation reflecting their gender identity.

This situation is completely unacceptable. Gender identity is exactly that, a fundamental characteristic of personal identity, and exists irrespective of surgery, or other forms of medical or psychological treatment.

In my opinion, trans and gender diverse people should be able to update their identity documentation, including birth certificates, solely on the basis of self-identification.

That means imposing no restrictions based on whether the person has had surgery, whether they have had other forms of physical treatment (including hormones), or whether they have accessed counselling or psychological services. It also means not requiring an application to include supporting statements from medical or psychological ‘gate-keepers’.

There is only one Australian jurisdiction which currently meets this standard, the Tasmanian Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1999, with s28A(2)(b) simply requiring the applicant to make a ‘gender declaration’ in support of their application.

I therefore support-in-principle the introduction of birth certificate reforms in NSW drawing on the existing framework in Tasmania.

One other important element is ensuring children and young people have the right to update their identity documentation, irrespective of whether it makes some adults uncomfortable.

This, at a minimum, would involve allowing young people aged 16 and 17 to make applications for new birth certificates in their own right.

It also means ensuring there is a process to allow children under 16 to update their birth certificates where they have two or more parents or guardians and those parents/guardians disagree among themselves whether to support that application.

Finally, it means introducing a framework to allow children under 16 to apply in the absence of support from a parent or guardian, where a court or tribunal considers it to be in the best interests of the child and also assesses the child to be capable of consenting to the application (such as in s29J of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996 (SA)).

However, as a cisgender member of the LGBTIQ community, I defer to the views of trans and gender diverse people, and the organisations representing them, on what the exact details of birth certificate reforms should include.

Ending non-consenting surgeries and other medical interventions on intersex children

The unnecessary, non-consenting and/or deferrable surgeries and other medical interventions which continue to be inflicted on children born with variations of sex characteristics (intersex children) aren’t just some of the biggest human rights abuses against the LGBTIQ community, but against any segment of the Australian community.

In this context, it is extremely frustrating that, approaching nine years from the historic 2013 Senate Inquiry into ‘Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia’, no Australian jurisdiction has legally prohibited these practices, including there being no signs of action in this area by the NSW Government.

Fortunately, the ACT Government has committed to ending these practices, and recently released their draft Variation in Sex Characteristics (Restricted Medical Treatment) Bill 2022 for public consultation.

On this issue, and whether the ACT legislation is best practice, I defer to the expertise of Intersex Human Rights Australia (IHRA). I note that in their submission to the current inquiry, they wrote:

‘The ACT government draft bill, published in May 2022, arises out of a commitment made in 2019, and deep engagement with community, clinicians, and human rights, bioethics and legal expertise. We commend this bill as a basis for reform in New South Wales.

‘The ACT government bill implements demands in the Darlington Statement of intersex community organisations and advocates in our region, and the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10… Action on this issue implements recommendations 1, 4, 7, 8 and 9 of the 2021 Australian Human Rights Commission report ‘Ensuring health and bodily integrity: towards a human rights approach for people born with variations in sex characteristics’. It also implements calls for reform by UN Treaty Bodies CEDAW, CRPD, CRC, HRC and CESCR, and addresses calls in 2021 position statements citing IHRA staff by the Australian Medical Association and the Public Health Association of Australia. It is consistent with a 2018 submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ [emphasis added].

I therefore endorse IHRA’s view – that the ACT draft legislation be used as a basis for reform in NSW, with any necessary amendments developed in close consultation with IHRA.

Banning sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices

The fourth major reform which should be included in the NSW Equality Bill is a prohibition on sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI) conversion practices (sometimes referred to as gay/trans conversion therapy, or ex-gay/ex-trans therapy).

These are incredibly harmful practices which cause immense psychological, and sometimes physical, harm on LGBTQ people.

In my view, SOGI conversion practices should be banned, both through civil prohibitions, allowing for a range of legal responses, and criminal offences in serious cases (such as where it causes actual physical or psychological harm, and/or involves minors or other vulnerable persons).

Importantly, these prohibitions must apply across a broad range of circumstances, including religious settings (where much of the reported harm takes place), and not just in health settings (which means the existing Queensland approach to this issue cannot be supported).

My understanding is there are potential strengths to both the Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Act 2021 and ACT Sexuality and Gender Identity Conversion Practices Act 2020.

However, as with trans and gender diverse birth certificate reform and intersex surgeries, I defer to the views of survivors of sexual orientation and/or gender identity conversion practices, and the organisations representing them, on what the exact details of this legislation should contain.

Legalising commercial surrogacy in NSW

This reform is different from the previous four in that it is not exclusively or even primarily an issue for the LGBTIQ community, given individuals and couples seeking to employ commercial surrogacy services can be cisgender and heterosexual also.

However, rainbow families, and especially male same-gender couples, are disproportionately affected by the current legal approach to surrogacy in NSW, which is not only to prohibit commercial surrogacy domestically (s8 of the Surrogacy Act 2010 (NSW)), but also to capture individuals or couples who engage in commercial surrogacy elsewhere but are ‘ordinarily resident or domiciled in the State’ (s11).

The maximum penalty for this offence is high: up to 1,000 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years, or both, for individuals.

More than a decade after this legislation was introduced, I don’t believe anyone in NSW genuinely believes that individuals and couples, including rainbow families, are not still engaging in commercial surrogacy arrangements in a wide range of international jurisdictions (and perhaps the only thing to even slow this process down has been since-eased pandemic-related travel restrictions, not domestic laws).

In this context, my personal view is that commercial surrogacy should be legalised in NSW.

There are two reasons for this. The first is based on harm reduction. Yes, I acknowledge that commercial surrogacy arrangements include a significant potential for exploitation, especially for women who are vulnerable or financially disadvantaged.

However, given commercial surrogacy is continuing (and will continue into the future, based on the strong desires of some members of the community to have children), the best way to minimise such exploitation is to permit commercial surrogacy within NSW, with careful and close oversight – in contrast to the current situation which sees people engage in surrogacy in jurisdictions potentially with minimal or no oversight, and with a legal incentive to avoid scrutiny of their activities.

The second reason for legalising commercial surrogacy in NSW is based on the best interests of the child. For the child being born into these families, it simply cannot be in their best interests for their parent(s) to be liable to up to 2 years imprisonment for the crime of the manner of their birth.

*****

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this submission. Please do not hesitate to contact me, at the details provided, if you would like further information or to discuss its contents.

Sincerely

Alastair Lawrie

NB This post is written in a personal capacity, and does not reflect the views of employers past or present.

Footnotes:

^[i] This approach applies in the absence of prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of religious belief in NSW. If religious belief is added as a stand-alone protected attribute to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) in the future, it may be appropriate to allow discrimination by religious schools on the basis of religious belief only (and not other attributes), but only against students at the point of enrolment, and only against teachers and other staff where it is an inherent requirement of the role.

^[ii] As with the previous footnote, this approach applies in the absence of a stand-alone protected attribute of religious belief under the Act. If such an attribute were to be introduced in future, it may be appropriate to permit some discrimination on the basis of religious belief only, in narrowly-restricted circumstances, informed by existing laws in Tasmania, and Victoria.

^[iii] This includes potentially updating the existing definitions of sexual orientation and gender identity in s93Z of the Crimes Act, as well as replacing the attribute of intersex status with sex characteristics.

The worst of times

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

As the dust settles on the recent federal election, and the new Albanese Labor Government settles into office, I wanted to take this short(ish) opportunity to reflect on the term of Parliament just ended, and especially its impact on LGBTIQ Australians.

To the surprise of few readers of this blog, the reflection of the past three years in the rear-view mirror (now thankfully receding into the distance) is far from pretty. Indeed, in my opinion, the 2019-2022 term of the Morrison Liberal/National Government was the worst for LGBTIQ people in my lifetime, by some margin.

There are many reasons for arriving at this conclusion, chief among them the Religious Discrimination Bill, which came to dominate the Morrison Government’s legislative agenda, especially in its dying days.

Remember, this was a law that sought to legally protect offensive, humiliating, insulting and ridiculing comments against women, LGBT people, people with disability and people of minority faiths. By over-riding existing state and territory anti-discrimination laws, it also procedurally denied access to justice for victims of discrimination.

The Coalition’s Religious Discrimination Bill featured the broadest special privileges allowing religious organisations to discriminate against employees and people accessing their services of any anti-discrimination law in Australia.

If passed, it could have entrenched existing discrimination against LGBT students ‘under the guise of religious views’ – while it definitely would have permitted new forms of discrimination against LGBT teachers by over-riding states and territories that had already protected them.

For more on the problems of the Religious Discrimination Bill, read: Why the Religious Discrimination Bill must be rejected (in 1,000 words or less)

And even though LGBT people were obviously not the only targets of what I would describe as legislated hatred, I don’t think anyone would deny that denying the rights of LGBT Australians was a primary motivator both for the Morrison Government itself, and for the religious fundamentalists who supported the Bill.

But the Religious Discrimination Bill was by no means the only attack on LGBTIQ people by the Morrison Government.

In the final 12 months alone, we saw all bar six Liberal and National Party Senators vote for a One Nation motion calling for an end to gender-affirming and supporting health care for trans children and teenagers (in June 2021).

In September, the Coalition also rejected straight-forward amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) which would have seen trans, gender diverse and intersex workers protected on exactly the same basis as others, including lesbian, gay and bisexual workers (for more, see: Pathetic, and antipathetic, in equal measure).

In February 2022, on the very day that the Religious Discrimination Bill was finally abandoned, Tasmanian Liberal Senator Claire Chandler introduced legislation seeking to ban trans women and girls from participating in sport. Despite being a private member’s bill, it was later explicitly and repeatedly supported by Morrison himself, and no doubt would have been a priority for his Government had they been re-elected.

And of course the election campaign itself was marred by the toxic transphobia of candidate for Warringah, Katherine Deves, hand-picked by Morrison himself in a transparent effort to invent a culture war and win the votes of bigots (for more, see: Ten months of transphobia).

Then there was the issue of LGBT students in religious schools, a topic about which the Morrison Government continually found new ways to disappoint, ultimately abandoning some of the most vulnerable members of the community.

Morrison had promised way back in October 2018 to protect LGBT kids before the end of that year – a commitment he spent the following three and a half years running away from (for more, see: Scott Morrison’s Broken Promise to Protect LGBT Students is Now Three Years Old). By the time he was booted from office, his broken promise to end discrimination against LGBT students was 1,318 days old (and yes, I was counting).

The appalling treatment of LGBT kids during the Religious Discrimination Bill debate in February demonstrates just how little he, and his Ministers, cared about this group. Not only did Morrison’s proposed amendments only seek to prohibit expulsion – which would have allowed religious schools to continue to mistreat students in 1,001 other ways, from differential treatment and exclusion, through to discipline, detention, suspension and even asking them to leave).

But the calculated choice to exclude trans and non-binary children from any and all protection whatsoever (and therefore only to prohibit the technical expulsion of lesbian, gay and bisexual kids), was a wholly-prejudiced policy so heinous it can never be forgiven, and that includes anyone who voted for it.

The mistreatment of LGBT students also neatly illustrates why the last term of Parliament was truly the worst of times because, as much as what made the past three years horrific were the constant attacks on our community, just as damaging in the long run was the Morrison Government’s failure to take action to address long-standing human rights abuses against LGBTIQ Australians.

Not least of which are coercive surgeries and other non-consenting medical interventions on children born with innate variations of sex characteristics (otherwise known as intersex children).

Not only did the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison Governments successively fail to implement any of the recommendations of the ground-breaking Senate Inquiry into this issue from October 2013 – almost nine years ago – but, as far as I am aware, they also didn’t even acknowledge, let alone respond to, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Report from October 2021 either (‘Ensuring health and bodily integrity: Protecting the human rights of people born with variations in sex characteristics in the context of medical interventions’).

Now, as someone who is in their mid-40s, I’m old enough to recognise that the last term of Parliament is not the only three-year period which has been challenging for LGBTIQ Australians.

Indeed, I suspect readers are probably thinking of two other terms which were also brutal – the 2001-2004 term of the Howard Government during which the marriage ban was originally passed, and the 2016-2019 term of the Turnbull/Morrison Government, and especially the plebiscite debate and then postal survey.

But I would argue that neither was as relentlessly awful as the three years just concluded.

In terms of Howard, it was really only the final six months of the 2001-2004 term during which he sought to use same-sex marriage (as it was then called) as a wedge against the Labor Opposition – the first two and a half years were awful for other reasons (especially in the (mis)treatment of First Nations people, and people seeking asylum) but did not specifically target LGBTIQ Australians in the same way as the Morrison Government.

And in terms of the 2016-2019 term of the Turnbull (and later Morrison) Government, I absolutely acknowledge that the debate about the plebiscite, in the last half of 2016, and then the postal survey (which, let’s not forget, was the idea of now-Opposition Leader Peter Dutton) in the last half of 2017, were completely unnecessary, totally divisive and ultimately damaging for far too many LGBTIQ people.

At the same time, it was nevertheless a debate about improving the legal recognition of LGBTIQ relationships, and the Australian people eventually delivered marriage equality, which was a welcome and long-overdue step forward (no thanks to the Liberal Party, who must never be allowed to claim credit for this outcome – see: Liberals Claiming Credit for Marriage Equality Can Get in the Bin).

In contrast, the debate around the Religious Discrimination Bill concerned a law that sought to strip existing rights away from LGBT people, including protections against discrimination, and the ability to go about our day-to-day lives without being subjected to offensive, humiliating, insulting and ridiculing comments simply because of who we are.

The Religious Discrimination Bill debate also dragged on far longer than the plebiscite/postal survey – with the first exposure draft released in August 2019 (followed by a second in December of that year), and the Bill not stopped until February 2022 (30 months later).

I should at least acknowledge two additional contextual factors which help to explain just why the past three years have been so rough – although neither reduces the culpability of the Morrison Government for its actions.

The first is that there was obviously a cumulative effect of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government’s homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and anti-intersex discrimination. With the safe schools debate and decision to de-fund it occurring in the first term, and the plebiscite debate and postal survey (plus religious freedom review) in the second, the LGBTIQ community was already worn down by seemingly continuous debates about our lives.

Although, as the Treasurer who allocated funding for the plebiscite and then postal survey, Scott Morrison is responsible for a significant share of that accumulated stress.

The second is there is no doubt the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020 has exacerbated the harms caused by the Morrison Government’s attacks on our community, especially because it left us isolated and alone in our homes when we needed each other for support and reinforcement to fight back against the Religious Discrimination Bill.

But once again, that context does nothing to exculpate the outgoing Government – indeed, the fact they were willing to push ahead with this divisive legislation, during bushfires, and floods, and a global pandemic, and instead of doing anything to alleviate climate change, only renders them more guilty.

There is one last question which needs to be addressed, and that is: why does writing this down matter? Especially post-election?

After all, the Morrison Government has been defeated. The country has (thankfully) moved on. While for the LGBTIQ community, we already know the past three years were the worst of times, because we endured them, and for many have the scars to prove it.

To which I say there are still (at least) two reasons for publishing this article.

The first is to ensure the Coalition’s homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and anti-intersex discrimination is properly recorded.

This is especially important as the Liberal Party inevitably tries to rewrite the history of the recent past, to present some kind of softer, kinder, gentler image to the electorate. But there was nothing soft, or kind, or gentle, about 2019, 2020, 2021, and early 2022 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer Australians.

The second is because I think it helps to explain how many of us are feeling, right now. Yes, there is a sense of relief the attacks on us have ended (for now), but that welcome feeling doesn’t even begin to outweigh the sheer exhaustion from fighting constant battles over the last three, or six, or nine, years.

The tiredness in our collective bones.

On a personal level, and as an advocate with more than two decades experience, I will willingly concede the past three years have been the toughest of them all.

The end of 2021, when two years of a global pandemic was followed by the introduction of the final Religious Discrimination Bill in late November, was particularly rough. It is definitely no coincidence that, in late December, exactly three days after lodging our submissions to both Parliamentary inquiries into the Bill, I came down with shingles (the working title for this post was actually ‘Scott Morrison’s Homophobia Gave Me Shingles’ but I assumed, probably correctly, nobody would click on that).

My body was saying, loudly and clearly, enough. Especially as illness ruined the planned summer break, preventing me from seeing my parents in Queensland.

Of course, the Religious Discrimination Bill debate continued, relentless, rolling on into Committee hearings in early January and Parliamentary debate in early February. But so did my need to stand up for my community, and try to see it defeated. Which we did. Collectively. But it came with a significant cost.

For me, that was burnout worse than anything I have experienced before, and – being completely honest – which I’ve only just recovered from (and which helps to explain the lack of recent posts).

Anyway, the point of this is not to say ‘woe is me’ (I’m fine, now). But it is to acknowledge there are a lot of people still feeling pretty bruised and battered by the past three years. And so we should try to show the care towards each other that the Morrison Government didn’t.

Together, we saw off the Religious Discrimination Bill. Together, we can put the worst of times behind us.

NB This post is written in a personal capacity, and does not reflect the views of employers past or present.

Scott Morrison’s defeat ended the worst Commonwealth Parliamentary term for LGBTIQ rights in my lifetime.

Letter to Dominic Perrottet re Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill

Posted on February 20, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

The Hon Dominic Perrottet

Premier of NSW

Submitted online

20 February 2022

Dear Premier Perrottet

Please reject the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) 2020

I am writing to urge you to reject the One Nation Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 – otherwise known as Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill.

All students in NSW deserve the opportunity learn and grow in a safe and welcoming school environment. That must include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) students.

The Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 fails this fundamental principle. It fails LGBTIQ students generally, and trans and nonbinary students in particular, by making them feel invisible, and denying them the same support as other students.

This includes erasing trans and nonbinary students in classrooms and schoolyards across the state via the ban on any discussion of ‘gender fluidity’, which would prevent teachers, principals and counsellors from even acknowledging that trans and gender diverse people exist, and leave students who are already vulnerable feeling even more isolated and alone.

It includes a broader ban on positive references to diversity in sexual orientation and gender identity. This provision – modelled on the notorious ‘section 28’ which harmed a generation of LGBTQ students in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s – would have a chilling effect on all school staff, and would even stop school counsellors from being able to reassure a student struggling with their sexual orientation, by telling them who they are is perfectly normal.

And it includes the insertion of a new offensive and stigmatising definition of people born with intersex variations of sex characteristics in NSW law.

Unfortunately, this is legislation that would harm LGBTIQ children and young people rather than help them. It must be rejected.

I also call on you to reject the recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Education Legislation Amendment Bill, through your Government’s response which is due by 7 March 2022.

That Inquiry was flawed from the very beginning, with One Nation Leader Mark Latham chairing the examination of his own legislation.

Nor did it hear from the communities who would be most at risk under the Bill: only one witness out of more than 40 who gave evidence was transgender, and none were current trans or nonbinary students.

Unsurprisingly, given this bias, the Committee’s recommendations would make the problems caused by the Bill worse, rather than better, including Recommendation 8 that would (among other things):

Ban trans students from using the bathroom that reflects their gender identity
Out trans students to non-supportive parents, even where this puts them in danger
Stop trans students from seeking confidential help from school counsellors, and
Out trans students to all of the parents of students in their year group.

These recommendations would only compound the harms caused by what was a deeply damaging and divisive Bill to begin with.

The Bill, and Inquiry recommendations, are in direct conflict with the message of unity which you emphasised when you first became Premier on 5 October 2021. You said:

‘Being Premier is a great honour, but I want to be clear that the job I have committed to today is not just to lead NSW, but to serve all the people of our state’ (emphasis added).^[i]

Abandoning LGBTIQ children and young people, and especially trans and nonbinary students, would clearly not be serving all the people of NSW.

In those same comments that day, you also said:

‘The true strength of NSW is its people, our working mums and dads, business owners, frontline workers, teachers, workers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, police, tradies’ (emphasis added).

If you genuinely support teachers, then you will oppose legislation that would place them in the most impossible of circumstances: having to choose between supporting the LGBTIQ students in their classes, or keeping their job.

This is because the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 would lead to teachers who acknowledge trans and gender diverse people exist, or make positive references to diversity in sexual orientation and gender identity, having their registration cancelled and therefore being fired.

Any human would choose to support the real-life person in front of them, and to meet their real-life needs, rather than implement discriminatory legislation that is not motivated by the best interests of those students.

As a human, and as Premier, you have the opportunity to reject this legislation, and to remove the threat to teachers for simply doing what teachers do: teach the child in front of them, including making sure they have an inclusive environment in which to learn and grow.

I therefore reiterate my call to you to publicly, and unequivocally, reject the One Nation Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, and the recommendations of Mark Latham’s Committee which inquired into his own legislation.

In doing so, you would be living up to your words on the day you became Premier, and the message of unity you delivered to the state.

Above all, you would be sending a clear message to LGBTIQ children and young people generally, and to trans and nonbinary students in particular, that who they are is valued, and that they have a place in NSW.

Thank you in advance for considering this correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me at the details provided should you require additional information.

Sincerely

Alastair Lawrie

Footnotes:

^[i] ‘Dominic Perrottet’s first full speech as leader’, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 2021, available here.

For more information on this subject, see: If you thought the Religious Discrimination Bill was bad, wait til you hear about Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill.

If you thought the Religious Discrimination Bill was bad, wait til you hear about Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

Last week, we had some rare good news: the Commonwealth Government’s Religious Discrimination Bill stalled in the Senate, and now seems unlikely to pass before the upcoming federal election.

That Bill would have legally protected religiously-motivated anti-LGBT speech in all areas of public life, and potentially overridden state and territory protections for LGBT teachers and other workers in religious schools in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT (among many other problems – for more detail, see: Why the Religious Discrimination Bill must be rejected (In 1,000 words or less)).

The fact it has been stopped (at least for now), is obviously a welcome relief.

Unfortunately, that relief is short-lived, especially for LGBTIQ people in NSW, because the NSW Government’s response to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 – otherwise known as his anti-trans kids Bill – is expected at any point in the next three weeks, and must be delivered by March 7 (the Monday after Mardi Gras).

This legislation is actually worse than the Religious Discrimination Bill, in particular because it so specifically targets the most vulnerable members of our community. For those who aren’t familiar with it, allow me to explain its main features.

What’s in Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill?

The primary purpose of Latham’s legislation is to erase trans and gender diverse children from classrooms and schoolyards across NSW. It does this by inserting the following definition into the Education Act 1990 (NSW):

gender fluidity means a belief there is a difference between biological sex (including people who are, by their chromosomes, male or female but are born with disorders of sexual differentiation) and human gender and that human gender is socially constructed rather [than] being equivalent to a person’s biological sex.

It then prohibits not just ‘the teaching of gender fluidity’ (proposed section 17A), but also any ‘instruction, counselling and advice provided by’ teachers, support staff, counsellors, principals, contractors, consultants and even volunteers at any school in the state, public or private (proposed section 17C).

The punishment for teachers who breach this prohibition is immediate de-registration (ie being fired).

In effect, the Bill would impose an official silence on anything to do with transgender people – even the fact that they exist. This includes everything from exclusion from the health and physical education syllabus, through to banning school counsellors from discussing gender identity with struggling students who are at risk of self-harm or suicide.

Trans and gender diverse kids would be made to feel invisible, with nowhere to turn to for help.

The Bill then *also* includes provisions to harm LGBTQ kids more generally. It does this by inserting a definition of matters of parental primacy:

in relation to the education of children, moral and ethical standards, political and social values, and matters of personal wellbeing and identity including gender and sexuality.

Before introducing a range of provisions to limit the teaching of anything to do with these issues. Chief among them is proposed section 17B:

Teaching to be non-ideological

In government schools, the education is to consist of strictly non-ideological instructions in matters of parental primacy. The words non-ideological instruction are to be taken to include general teaching about matters of parental primacy as distinct from advocating or promoting dogmatic or polemical ideology.

The impact of this provision is incredibly far-reaching. After all, if some parents believe homosexuality is sinful, then presumably it would be ideological for a school to teach that simply being lesbian, gay or bisexual is okay. As with the ban on the teaching of gender fluidity, this ban also applies in relation to school counsellors (who could not reassure a child struggling with their sexual orientation that who they are is normal).

The use of the phrase ‘advocating or promoting’ reveals this is simply Margaret Thatcher’s infamous section 28 – which harmed a generation of LGBT kids in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s – recycled on the other side of the world for the 2020s.

The outcome would be the same here – teachers and other workers too afraid to mention anything to do with sexual orientation or gender identity at the risk of de-registration, inflicting silence on LGBTQ kids where there should be support.

Finally, Latham’s Bill attacks the ‘I’ part of the LGBTIQ community by including an offensive and stigmatising reference to intersex in NSW law (as part of the definition of gender fluidity – ‘people who are, by their chromosomes, male or female but are born with disorders of sexual differentiation). The use of disorders here is exactly the type of harmful language which encourages the imposition of coercive surgeries and other unnecessary medical treatments on children born with variations of sex characteristics.

For more detail on the Bill, see I Stand With Trans Kids, and Against Mark Latham.

But it’s from Mark Latham. Why can’t we just ignore it?

For those (blissfully) unaware of Mark Latham’s current political status, the failed former federal leader of the Australian Labor Party is now the NSW leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. In a normal political environment, fringe extremist legislation from a fringe extremist party could sometimes be ignored.

Sadly, the NSW Legislative Council removed this option when, in its infinite (lack of) wisdom, it decided to refer the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 to the Education Portfolio Committee for inquiry – the same Committee chaired by… Mark Latham.

Given this, the inquiry process into Latham’s unbalanced and transphobic Bill was, well, unbalanced and transphobic.

In the two days of hearings last April, 42 witnesses were invited to give evidence. Only one (Teddy Cook, from ACON) was trans or gender diverse. None were trans or gender diverse students, the people whose right to a safe learning environment would be stripped away by passage of this law.

There were multiple instances of disrespectful treatment towards submitters who opposed the Bill (from Latham himself), while he encouraged other witnesses to give evidence about subject matter which was not included in the legislation (such as witnesses who focused on the exclusion of trans girls from bathrooms, and sporting activities).

Unsurprisingly, the entire committee process became a platform for some of the worst examples of transphobia we have seen in any Australian parliament in recent history, perhaps best summed up by this statement from Mark Sneddon of the Institute of Civil Society:

‘What we are trying to do – or what I understand the bill is trying to do – is to reduce the social contagion influence putting more people onto the conveyor belt of gender transition.’

Which, at the very least, is being honest: through this Bill, Latham is attempting to stop trans and nonbinary kids from being trans and nonbinary. Presumably because he thinks being those things is a negative in and of itself.

While the rest of us understand that:

Trans and nonbinary people are part of the natural spectrum of human gender identity
Trans and nonbinary kids are awesome, and
There are really two conveyor belts – one which lets trans and nonbinary kids be themselves and delivers them to health and happiness, and one which tells trans and nonbinary kids that they are wrong and should not exist, and causes them serious harm.

For more on the Inquiry process, see: Surprise!* Mark Latham’s Inquiry is just as unbalanced and transphobic as his Bill.

What did the Inquiry recommend?

Completely unsurprisingly, given the Committee’s lack of impartiality, the Final Report released in September 2021 endorsed core parts of Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill.

This includes Recommendation 2, which supported the section 28-style approach to denying information to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students:

That, in recognition of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the NSW Government supports all parental primacy provisions and protections in the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights Bill) 2020 including:

the statutory recognition of parental primacy in definition, object and principle within the Education Act 1990 and related statutes;
the requirement for teaching to be non-ideological;
the enhanced consultation requirements with parents; and
the right for parents to withdraw their children from teaching that is inconsistent with their core values and convictions.

And while there was a brief glimmer of hope when I first read Recommendation 7 (‘That the Legislative Council amend the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 to remove the proposed legislative provisions concerning gender fluidity’), this was immediately undone by Recommendation 8, which starts:

‘That the NSW Government update Bulletin 55: Transgender Students in Schools based on the following principles:

The Safe Schools program and Gayby Baby movie are prohibited in NSW Government schools. Gender fluidity is not part of the NSW school curriculum and therefore, should not be taught or promoted, either in classrooms, teacher professional development, by external consultants, special school activities or through the distribution of material to teachers or students. This prohibition also applies to the teaching of gender as a ‘social construct’.’

In practice, the Committee still endorsed the erasure of trans and gender diverse kids from classrooms and schoolyards, they simply thought it could best be achieved via Bulletin, not Bill.

But there are other parts of Recommendation 8 which are *far* worse, and would not be out of place in regressive and repressive, redneck Republican USA. This includes (but is definitely not limited to):

A ban on trans students using the bathroom that reflects their gender identity (Recommendation 8.9: ‘Other than in circumstances of a full medical gender transition,^[i] students born biologically male shall not be allowed in female toilets, change rooms, dormitories and excursion accommodation; and vice versa for students born biologically female. Third options shall be made available for these students, such as administrative block toilets and change rooms’)
Outing trans students to non-supportive parents, even where this puts the student in danger (Recommendation 8.4: ‘No school or school staff can withhold information from parents about the gender or gender transition of a student at the school, other than by court order or acting with the advice of a government child protection agency’ and Recommendation 8.5: ‘No student has the right or capacity to stop the school telling their parents information about their gender, where the school is obliged to do so’)
Stopping trans students from seeking confidential help from school counsellors (Recommendation 8.11: ‘For students aged under 18 years, school counsellors should not involve themselves in questions of gender fluidity and transition without prior reference to parents and any medical professionals advising the student and parents on this matter. Parents have the right to know if gender fluidity and transition are being discussed at a school. School counsellors must liaise with parents and relevant medical professionals as much as possible’), and
Outing trans students to all of the parents of students in their year group (Recommendation 8.12: ‘If a student has changed their gender, their parents shall be consulted about the best way of communicating this to the school community. Parents of other children in the same year group should be notified of the change, allowing them to talk to their children in advance’).

The full Committee report, and other harmful parts of Recommendation 8, can be read here.

In short, the adoption of Recommendation 8 in full would cause significant harm for thousands of trans and nonbinary children and young people in NSW.

Which makes it disturbing to realise that not only was this recommendation (and all of the others, including implementing section 28) made by Committee Chair Mark Latham, they were endorsed by all three Coalition members of the Committee, as well as one of the two Labor Opposition members.

Only Labor MLC Anthony D’Adam and Greens MLC David Shoebridge stood up for trans and gender diverse kids against this harmful and hateful Bill.

So, what happens next?

What happens next comes down to the NSW Government, and in particular to new(ish) Premier Dominic Perrottet.

As I indicated in the introduction, they must respond to the Final Report of Mark Latham’s Committee’s Inquiry into Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill by 7 March 2022 at the latest.

The simplest approach would be for Perrottet to reject both the Committee Report, and the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, outright, and to instead stand up for the rights of all students – including all lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and nonbinary, intersex and queer students – to a safe learning environment.

But that outcome is by no means guaranteed. There are obviously some members within the Government who support Latham’s agenda attacking trans and gender diverse kids (starting with the three MLCs on his Committee).

Indeed, the Liberal Party Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Kevin Conolly, expressed his personal support for the Latham anti-trans kids Bill in his response to my letter to NSW MPs this time last year, asking them to reject the Bill (my original letter is here: NSW MPs can be champions for trans and gender diverse kids. Or bullies while I published Conolly’s response here: NSW Liberal Parliamentary Secretary for Education Supports Bill to Erase Trans Kids).

It is therefore entirely possible that Premier Perrottet, and the NSW Government, endorse some parts, or even all, of Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 before Monday March 7.

We could also see them introduce their own legislation on this subject, similar to and possibly inspired by the Latham Bill, in the following weeks or months.

If that happens, then it will take a collective effort just as strong, and just as broad-based, as the campaign against the Religious Discrimination Bill to ensure it is defeated.

We will need to fight like lives depend on it. Because they will. The lives of some of the most vulnerable members of our community: trans and nonbinary kids.

*****

For LGBTIQ+ people, if this post has raised issues for you, please contact QLife on 1800 184 527, or via webchat: https://qlife.org.au/ (between 3pm and midnight, every day)

Or contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14.

All eyes will be on Education Minister Sarah Mitchell (front), and Premier Dominic Perrottet (back), in coming weeks as they announce the NSW Government’s response to Mark Latham’s Committee’s Inquiry into Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill.

Footnotes:

^[i] Noting that, for the vast majority of trans and gender diverse young people, they do not access what is referred to here as ‘full medical gender transition’ until they are 18.

5 things we learned from the Senate Hearings into the Religious Discrimination Bill

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has been conducting an inquiry into the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 over summer.

As part of that inquiry, it held two days of public hearings, on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 January, with a range of witnesses from religious organisations, civil society, business, legal groups, the Australian Human Rights Commission and Attorney-General’s Department.

Here are five things we learned from those hearings, ahead of the Committee’s final report, which is due to be tabled this afternoon (Friday 4 February), prior to debate on the Bill resuming in the House of Representatives next Tuesday (8 February).

Citipointe’s conduct is not an outlier – in fact, it’s exactly the point

By now, most people will be familiar with the situation at Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane, which this time last week, issued a new enrolment contract seeking to discriminate against LGBT students generally, and trans and gender diverse students in particular.

What is also important to note is the way in which they sought to justify this discrimination. Clause 26 of their contract in particular tries to dress it up as discrimination on the basis of religious belief about gender identity, rather than on the basis of gender identity itself:

‘The Parents acknowledge and accept that, should I/we not share the College’s commitment to fostering these fundamental doctrinal precepts, this will constitute a serious departure from the religious precepts upon which Citipointe Christian College is based and will afford Citipointe Christian College the right to exclude a student from the College who no longer adheres to the College’s doctrinal precepts including those as to biological sex, which constitute an important tenet of the College’s Christian religion (emphasis added).’

Now, it is highly likely that Citipointe’s actions would be unlawful under the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act 1991, not just because that legislation does not allow religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity, at all, but also because neither does it allow them to discriminate against students on the basis of religious belief beyond the point of initial enrolment.

Therefore, even if the school was successful in arguing this was indeed discrimination on the ground of religious belief about gender identity, it still couldn’t lawfully discriminate against existing trans and gender diverse kids.

Unfortunately, the same safeguard does not exist in the Religious Discrimination Bill, which allows religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of religious belief not just at the point of enrolment, but throughout their education.

And this right will exist, even if Liberal moderates are successful in amending the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) to remove specific exceptions allowing religious schools to discriminate under that law.

Which means, if the Religious Discrimination Bill is passed in its current form, religious schools will continue to discriminate against LGBT students, ‘under the guise of religious views’, rather than sexual orientation and gender identity.

But the outcome will still be the same: LGBT kids mistreated because of who they are.

Above all, the attempted actions by Citipointe on this issue are not an outlier – in fact, multiple religious organisations at the Senate hearings told us this is what they would do.

For example, there was this exchange involving Mr Mark Spencer, Director of Public Policy, Christian Schools Australia:

Senator Andrew Bragg (Liberal): Finally – I’m just conscious of time – on the issue of children in schools, I understand that there was some discussion earlier about the different clauses that may or may not be considered by this parliament. My question is really more on the principle here, which is: do you want to have a right in the law to expel gay kids?

Mr Spencer: Again, you’re making a sweeping statement there that needs a bit more nuance. For a start, you talk about gay kids. Are you talking about same-sex attracted kids who might be committed to living a biblical authentic life? Are you talking about young people who may be, by their behaviour, not meeting the conduct standards of the school? There are a whole range of difference scenarios in there that you need to be unpacking and considering. The short answer is: no, no child has been, and no child do we want to sack simply because they might be same-sex attracted.

Senator Bragg: So your answer is no?

Mr Spencer: The answer is: no child do we want to expel simply because they’re same-sex attracted (emphasis added).

Translation: Christian Schools Australia reserve the right to discriminate against, and even expel, any gay student who is not ‘committed to living a biblical authentic life’. Which means affirming statements like ‘homosexuality is intrinsically disordered’, and pledging to be celibate for life.

In other words (or my words in fact): If a gay kid hates themself enough, they can stay. But if they do not believe who they are is inherently wrong, they can be lawfully mistreated.

Or this exchange with Right Reverend Dr Micheal Stead, Bishop of South Sydney, Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney:

Senator Bragg: I guess the question is: should you be allowed to discriminate against someone based on their sexual preference if they are teaching in accordance with the ethos of the school?

Bishop Stead: No – sorry, I may have misunderstood your question. None of the religious bodies are arguing for the right to discriminate on the basis of sexuality or gender. What we’re arguing for is the right to be able to discriminate on the basis of religious belief. If it happens that somebody’s religious belief also reflects their sexuality or their gender in a way which is inconsistent with the belief of the organisation-

…

Bishop Stead: Yes. The religious institutions are not seeking the right to discriminate on the basis of sexuality, gender or any of the other protected attributes-

Senator Deb O’Neill (ALP): Race, disability, age-

Bishop Stead: Thank you. They’re looking for the right to, in the wrong language, ‘discriminate on the basis of religion’. We would say ‘to preference on the basis of religion’ – to act in accordance with their religious belief. It’s only at the point at which somebody’s religious belief has changed to reflect their sexuality or gender that makes it inconsistent with the school that we’re into this area of intersectionality (emphasis added).

Again, they might say it’s discrimination on the basis of religious belief (or ‘preferencing’, to use their term), but it’s clear that in practice LGBT students and teachers will be the victims.

Or this exchange with Mrs Moira Deeming, Researcher, Church and Nation Committee, Presbyterian Church of Victoria:

Mrs Deeming: There are gay Christians and teachers – I am a teacher – who are Christians first and the way that they deal with whatever their sexuality feels like is expressed in a Christian manner. It’s about religious freedom and it’s about religious association. It’s not about finding out if someone is gay and cutting them out. It’s about working out: are you like minded with us? If you are like minded, join with us. Then there shouldn’t be an issue.

Senator Bragg: That wasn’t my question, but I know I am out of time. On notice, can you come back with exactly what your position is because, frankly, it’s a bit murky.

Mrs Deeming: Would you mind restating your question clearly just one more time?

Senator Bragg: The question is: do you want to be able to discriminate based on sexual orientation or preference in the hiring of your staff?

Mrs Deeming: That’s a corollary to preferencing based on religious belief. We’re not targeting anybody- (emphasis added)

All three witnesses appear to be saying: we reserve the right to discriminate against LGBT people, we’ll just call it discrimination on the basis of religious belief.

Which is exactly what Citipointe Christian College was trying to do with its contract. Fortunately, that was unlawful because of the much stronger anti-discrimination laws in Queensland.

But, discrimination protections for students and teachers under the Religious Discrimination Bill are much, much weaker, because of the excessive and extreme exceptions provided to religious organisations under this legislation, allowing them to lawfully discriminate.

As a result, there will be plenty more Citipointes around the country in future. And that’s not ‘murky’, it’s perfectly clear.

2. Workers from minority faiths are left unprotected by the Bill

The excessive and extreme religious exceptions contained in the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 don’t just affect LGBT people.

In fact, one of the groups who stand to lose the most are workers from minority faiths. This is because large, usually-Christian, publicly-funded service delivery organisations – including hospitals, aged care facilities, accommodation providers and disability service providers – will be able to lawfully discriminate on the basis of religious belief in employment.

That means hiring (and firing), and providing (or denying) training, promotion, and other benefits, on the basis of faith rather than ability. Workers who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic and atheist can be treated less favourably than Christians, just because of who they are.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Mr Surinder Jain, National Vice President of the Hindu Council of Australia, explaining the Bill’s impact on his community:

‘We have a lot of Hindus who work in aged-care services and disability services, predominantly being run by religious organisations. We have doctors working in private hospitals. We have IT people. Their jobs would be questionable. There is another category of people who are new migrants, who come here and who are desperately looking for a job and they find a job in a religious organisation. There is unsaid pressure on them that they should adapt to the religion of the organisation that they are in. This way the religious freedom [Bill] would actually be taking away their freedom of ideology and religion in declaring their faith and practising their faith and in not being pressured into adopting another faith.’

In short, the Religious Discrimination Bill privileges larger faiths at the expense of smaller ones, and especially employees of the latter.

3. A ‘mask off’ moment revealed what the statement of belief provision is really about

Through much of the hearings, and especially during the appearance by the Attorney-General’s Department on the Friday afternoon, defenders of the Bill attempted to downplay the impact of the unprecedented statement of belief override of all other Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws that protects religiously-motivated comments that offend, humiliate, insult and ridicule others.

They tried to make it seem like it was all very reasonable, rather than an extraordinary legal privilege to allow people to make demeaning and derogatory comments about women, LGBT people, people with disability and people of minority faiths in all areas of public life.

Well, not all of them – one witness on the Thursday afternoon let the ‘reasonable’ mask slip, confirming the statement of belief provision will provide a platform for transphobia: Mrs Moira Deeming, Researcher, Church and Nation Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.

I’ll reproduce the relevant part of the transcript below, but for context, remember that Greens Senator Janet Rice’s late wife was a trans woman:

Senator Janet Rice (Greens): We’re talking about, particularly, clauses 11 and 12 of this bill and, particularly, the statements of belief. The Australian Human Rights Commission say that statements of belief that will be legal under this legislation, which will override state and territory legislation, are currently considered discrimination, and they will no longer be considered discrimination.

Mrs Deeming: Multipartisan support – let’s get a controversial statement. ‘Trans women are men’. Would you consider that, in and of itself, a discriminatory statement that should never be uttered?

Senator Rice: If that were being stated in a workplace to a trans woman, absolutely.

Senator Rice: Do you believe that’s not discrimination?

Mrs Deeming: I just think it’s a statement of belief, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a religious belief.

Senator Rice: And, if it’s offensive to that trans woman, you that it’s acceptable?

Mrs Deeming: I think-

Senator Rice: It’s deeply offensive and potentially causing that trans woman to have severe mental health illness… to not be accepted in their gender identity.

Chair: Senator Rice, I’m just going to ask you to pause here.

Senator Louise Pratt (ALP): But, in the same workplace, someone won’t have the right to call the person who said that a bigot.

Chair: Senator Pratt, I’m just going to ask you to pause as well. Senator Rice has put a question to Mrs Deeming. Mrs Deeming, please answer the question. I don’t want any witness being interrupted, please.

Mrs Deeming: I pose that question because it’s obviously the most controversial one at the moment. It’s not specifically a religious view that biological sex cannot be altered. It’s not. There are many, many people – lesbians, in fact, and homosexual men and people from across the political spectrum, people in every single party here – that would agree with the statement that trans women are, by definition, male. They wouldn’t be making it on the basis of hate. What I’m interested her is finding out whether you’re going to try and take statements like that and class them as inherently harmful, where no offence was intended. It’s just a difference of belief. It’s a belief we don’t subscribe to.

Senator Rice: A difference of belief?… In that sort of instance, in a workplace, if that statement has been given to a young person who is attempting to affirm their gender, it leads to severe mental unwellness and severe impact on them – not being able to affirm their gender. It leads to suicidal ideation. It leads to potential suicide. That is the reality for trans and gender diverse people. So I put it to you that that is, in and of itself, a discriminatory and hateful statement if it is being made to those people.

Mrs Deeming: And I put it to you that it is psychologically abusive to coerce students and other people to say things that they do not believe, especially about the nature of biological-

*****

There’s a lot to take in there obviously, but some things stand out:

Deeming pro-actively chose to raise the statement ‘trans women are men’ – during an exchange with a Senator whose late wife was a trans woman
She argued that it’s ‘just a statement of belief’, and therefore should be legally protected
She did not agree with Rice’s comments about the harm caused by such statements to trans and gender diverse people
Instead, Deeming claimed it is ‘psychologically abusive’ to require students and other people to effectively treat trans and gender diverse people with respect.

In this exchange, Deeming confirmed that the statement of belief provision is not about providing protection for people who simply state ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ – it is instead really about allowing people to make deeply transphobic comments to others, even to fellow employees in the workplace who are simply trying to do their job.

4. ‘The limit does not exist’ to the religious freedom agenda

There was another development over the course of the hearings which reveals a helluva lot about the ever-growing demands of the ‘religious freedom’ movement – and how it will continue to strip away the rights of others, with little care for the consequences it creates.

This relates to proposals to redraft clause 12 of the Bill – which is the ‘statement of belief’ provision – ostensibly to ensure it is constitutional. These changes were put forward by Professor Nicholas Aroney, who had previously served as a member of the Ruddock Religious Freedom Review (which helped to create the mess we are now in).

Anyway, from Mr Aroney’s submission to the Committee:

‘To maintain this policy objective while addressing any doubts about the effectiveness of clause 12 under section 109 of the Constitution it would be sufficient to amend the clause so that it reads:

(1) A statement of belief, in and of itself, does not constitute discrimination for the purposes of this Act.

(2) Notwithstanding any of the following State of Territory laws, it is not unlawful to make a statement of belief, in and of itself:’

The redrafted amendment then lists all four of the Commonwealth anti-discrimination Acts (Racial, Sex, Disability and Age), and each of the primary state and territory anti-discrimination laws (such as the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977).

Now, I am not a constitutional lawyer, so I can’t tell you whether it has made the provision more, or less, constitutional.

However, I am an expert on the Religious Discrimination Bill and I can tell you that with this drafting Mr Aroney has made sure the ‘statement of belief’ clause would explicitly override section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth).

As well as all state and territory anti-vilification provisions found in their primary Acts (like the prohibitions on racial, homosexual, transgender and HIV/AIDS vilification in the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977).

This is because his version of clause 12 overrides all parts of these laws (by using the general phrase ‘it is not unlawful’), whereas even the current version of the Religious Discrimination Bill applies to discrimination only (it uses the phrase ‘does not constitute discrimination’ instead).

I can’t speak for Mr Aroney, so I don’t know whether this drafting is deliberate – and he meant to ensure religiously-motivated comments that breach laws like s18C should be protected – or whether it is simply careless.

But even if it was the latter, I think it is symptomatic of the overall ‘religious freedom’ agenda – and that is it is only ever concerned with securing more, and more, and more, rights for religious fundamentalists, like the right to be a bigot towards women, LGBT people, people with disability and people of minority faiths.

And rarely, if ever, do religious freedom advocates bother to step back to consider what is being stripped away from other groups in society. Such as, in this instance, racial minorities.

My view is reinforced by the fact, on Thursday 20 January, multiple witnesses, from a variety of different religious organisations, were asked whether they supported Mr Aroney’s changes. Those that offered their support for his drafting include:

Mr John Steenhof, Principal Lawyer, Human Rights Law Alliance
Mr Mark Sneddon, Executive Director, Institute for Civil Society
Professor Patrick Parkinson, Director, Freedom for Faith
Right Reverend Dr Michael Stead, Bishop of South Sydney, Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney
Reverend Christopher Duke, Convener, Church and Nation Committee, Presbyterian Church of Victoria
Pastor Michael Worker, General Secretary and Director, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty, Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, and
Pastor Mark Llewellyn Edwards, Australian Christian Churches.

Again, I have no idea if they each consciously support overriding s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), and other state and territory anti-vilification laws. But they absolutely supported amendments that have this practical effect. And at the very least it seems nobody even stopped to think about who was going to lose out as a result.

That is the insatiable religious freedom agenda in action. And you had best believe that, even if the Religious Discrimination Bill is passed, it will not stop eating away at the rights of others to live their lives free from discrimination.

5. Government Senators still haven’t grasped the full dangers of the Religious Discrimination Bill

It is fair to describe the Religious Discrimination Bills as complex, particularly because it contains a number of unique provisions that do things no other Australian anti-discrimination law has ever done before (like clauses 11 and 12, which specifically override, and undermine, anti-discrimination protections in other jurisdictions).

Nevertheless, it was disheartening when, on the final afternoon of two Senate hearings – which followed another three days of hearings into the Bill by the Joint Committee on Human Rights – the Chair of the Committee (Senator Sarah Henderson), was involved in the following exchanges, demonstrating she still hadn’t fully understood one of the Bill’s main problems:

Chair: Do you have to believe that it’s part of the doctrines and tenets of that religion? There has got to be a factual basis for that. You can’t just subjectively believe that.

Mr Walter [from the Attorney-General’s Department]: It’s a test of whether the individual believes it or not…

…

Chair: Does it have to be genuinely held in relation to you’ve got to factually be able to demonstrate that what you hold as your genuine belief reflect the doctrines and tenets of that religion? Your so-called relationship with God can’t be separated from, or not connected with, the doctrines and tenets of that religion. In other words, you can’t just make something up.

Senator Rice: You can. If you genuinely believe that your religion says so, you can.

Chair: That’s what I’m seeking to clarify. There’s been a genuine concern that many have expressed during these two days of hearings.

Mr Walter: Yes. What it doesn’t do is it doesn’t apply an objective text of saying, for example, ‘I believe X’…

…

Chair: Just to give you an example, could someone who is pro-euthanasia and has made some comments in relation to that issue genuinely consider that such a position is in accordance with the doctrines and tenets of Catholicism, for instance? The concern is that when you start to rely on the individual’s-

Senator Rice: It’s how it’s drafted.

Chair: genuine belief, which might not be connected in any way with the doctrine or tenet of that particular religion, isn’t there an issue with an objective test not applying?

Mr Walter: In that particular example, in theory, yes. However, that person needs to establish that they genuinely believe that. You’re going to be looking for a pattern of evidence that they’ve held that belief for a long time or they’ve expressed it in many ways-

Chair: Surely that doesn’t make sense, because that’s not consistent with the Catholic doctrine. How can they genuinely believe that that’s part of a tenet of that faith when it clearly, on its face, does not accord with the doctrines or tenets of Catholicism? How could that-

Senator O’Neill (ALP): That’s before we get to the religions that are new and don’t have such a body of evidence.

Senator Rice: Exactly.

Chair: That’s what makes this very complicated. Is there not a difficulty because there’s not an objective text; it’s a subjective test?

*****

At the very end, Senator Henderson was finally at least starting to ask the right question – because yes, there is a massive difficulty in that the definition of statement of belief is entirely subjective (with clause 5 of the Bill stating that only the person making the statement needs to ‘genuinely consider’ it to be in accordance with the religion).

That’s why this provision will protect an almost unlimited array of fringe beliefs – including white supremacist speech, as long as the person making it ‘genuinely considers’ it relates to their particularly-warped views of Christianity. It would not matter if every single church in Australia disagreed with them.

And the Attorney-General’s Department’s response – You’re going to be looking for a pattern of evidence that they’ve held that belief for a long time or they’ve expressed it in many ways – only makes things worse.

Apparently, if you can show you’ve made white supremacist comments, dressed up as religious belief, many times before, then it makes it more likely your comments will be protected from discrimination claims under Commonwealth, state and territory law.

The statement of belief provision is a mess. The whole Religious Discrimination Bill is a mess. And it must be rejected.

Conclusion

The above are just five of the issues which arose during the two days of hearings by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee into the Religious Discrimination Bill. There were many more I could have chosen to highlight here.

Despite this, based on media reports this morning, it seems likely that both Liberal and Labor Senators will recommend that the legislation be passed.

Which gives us just a matter of days to help stop this extreme, radical and unprecedented assault on the human rights of everyday Australians.

The best thing you can do at this point is to:

Use this webform to tell Labor MPs and Senators to Kill the Bill and

Use this webform to tell moderate Liberal MPs to do the same

And if you need any further convincing of why this legislation should be defeated, try this: Why the Religious Discrimination Bill must be rejected (in 1,000 words or less).

The Religious Discrimination Bill might have been introduced by PM Scott Morrison, but it is just as big a test for Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese: will he support legislation that takes away rights from women, LGBT people, people with disability and people from minority faiths?

[NB This article is written in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of employers, past or present.]

Why the Religious Discrimination Bill must be rejected (in 1000 words or less)

Posted on January 23, 2022 by Alastair Lawrie

The Morrison Government’s Religious Discrimination Bill is a serious threat to the rights of women, LGBT people, people with disability, people of minority faiths and many other Australians.

However, because anti-discrimination law is already highly technical, and the proposed Bill is both incredibly complex, and contains a range of provisions that are completely unprecedented, it can be difficult to understand exactly what is at stake.

The following, then, is my attempt to explain the major problems contained in the Religious Discrimination Bill in 1000 words or less:

*****

The ‘statement of belief’ provision protects offensive, humiliating, insulting and ridiculing comments against women, LGBT people, people with disability, people of minority faiths and others on the basis of who they are.

It does this by taking away existing protections against discrimination under all Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws, including targeting the best practice provisions of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act.

As long as they are motivated by religious belief, people will be empowered to make demeaning and derogatory comments in all areas of public life: in workplaces, schools and universities, hospitals, aged care, public transport, cafes, restaurants and shops. Everywhere.

And because the definition of statement of belief depends only on the subjective interpretation of the person making them, it protects fringe or radical views, including religiously-motivated anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and even racism.

By overriding all other anti-discrimination laws, the ‘statement of belief’ provision also denies access to justice to victims of discrimination.

This is because it effectively introduces a Commonwealth ‘defence’ to state laws, meaning state tribunals – which hear the majority of anti-discrimination cases – will be unable to resolve complaints where this issue is raised.

These cases will instead need to be heard by state supreme courts, or federal courts, at massively-increased costs to complainants.

The groups most likely to experience religiously-motivated discrimination – women, LGBT people, people with disability and people of minority faiths – will lose the most.

The ‘statement of belief’ provision also grants extraordinary powers to the Commonwealth Attorney-General to take away existing rights in other areas, by ‘prescribing’ additional laws that will be undermined.

Laws that are at risk include:

‘Safe access zone’ protections covering pregnant people seeking lawful terminations
Bans on sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices, and even
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits racial vilification.

The ‘religious exceptions’ in the proposed Bill are just as dangerous.

While many anti-discrimination laws contain ‘religious exceptions’, the special privileges allowing religious organisations to discriminate under the Religious Discrimination Bill are far broader than any other Commonwealth, state or territory anti-discrimination law.

This is both because it adopts a much more lenient test than other laws to determine when this discrimination is permitted (only requiring that one other person of the same religion could reasonably consider the discrimination to be justified).

And because it applies to a much wider range of organisations than other laws, covering charities, hospitals, aged care facilities, accommodation providers, disability service providers, camps and conference sites and even religious organisations undertaking some commercial activities.

Unlike the Sex Discrimination Act and similar laws, the Bill does not require these bodies to have been ‘established for religious purposes’, imposing the much easier test of ‘conducted in accordance with’ religious beliefs.

The people who stand to lose most from these exceptions are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and atheist workers denied jobs, promotions and training they are qualified for simply because of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

These exceptions also apply to ‘religious educational institutions’, covering everything from child-care and early learning centres, through to schools, colleges and universities.

However, unlike best practice provisions in Tasmania, Queensland, the ACT and NT which limit these exceptions to enrolment only, the proposed Bill permits discrimination against students on the basis of religious belief throughout their education.

In this way, the Religious Discrimination Bill allows discrimination against children and young people, denying them their religious freedom to question, explore and develop their own faith as they learn and grow, without fear of punishment.

The same provisions could also be used by religious schools to discriminate against LGBT kids, not on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity itself, but on whether they affirm statements like ‘homosexuality is intrinsically disordered’ or ‘God created man and woman, therefore being transgender is sinful’. The outcome would nevertheless be the same: LGBT kids being mistreated because of who they are.

This means that, even if the Morrison Government finally implements its promise to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to protect LGBT students, religious schools could still discriminate against them via alternative means.

The Bill also allows discrimination against teachers and other employees of religious educational institutions, meaning they can be hired and fired on the basis of their faith, not their skills.

In addition, it grants extraordinary powers to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, allowing them to take away existing rights from teachers under state and territory anti-discrimination laws.

This includes recently-passed laws in Victoria which only permit discrimination where it is an inherent requirement of the role, and ‘reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances’, as well as similar laws in operation in Queensland for two decades, and in Tasmania and the ACT.

As with students, these provisions could also provide an alternative means to permit discrimination against LGBT workers ‘under the guise of religious views’. LGBT teachers and other staff are potentially at risk in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT.

Finally, the Bill includes a range of other significant problems:

Removing the ability of qualifying bodies to take appropriate action about harmful ‘statements of belief’ made by professionals outside the workplace (for example, protecting repeated homophobic and transphobic comments by a doctor in a small town, even where this makes it unsafe for LGBT people to access essential healthcare)

Providing an unprecedented ability for religious organisations to make discrimination complaints in their own right, including allowing faith bodies to take legal action to prevent Commonwealth, state and territory governments from requiring organisations that receive public funding not to discriminate against LGBT people

Preventing local governments from passing by-laws to address harmful anti-LGBT ‘street preachers’

Introducing a totally unnecessary amendment to the Charities Act to ‘protect’ charities advocating a ‘traditional view of marriage’ (and those charities only), and

Expanding ‘religious exceptions’ in the Marriage Act to allow religious educational institutions to deny the use of their facilities for LGBTI-inclusive weddings, even where these facilities are offered to the public on a commercial basis.

Overall, the Religious Discrimination Bill promotes rather than prohibits discrimination. It must be blocked.

(999 words)

*****

The above summary does not even cover all of the many problems created by the Religious Discrimination Bill. If you would like to know more of the technical details, I encourage you to read the public submissions made by:

the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, here;

and

the Australian Discrimination Law Experts Group, here

to the two Parliamentary committees (Joint Committee on Human Rights, and Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs) which have been holding inquiries into this legislation over summer.

Both Committees are due to table their final reports to Parliament on Friday 4 February, meaning the Religious Discrimination Bill could be debated, and passed, in the sitting weeks beginning on Tuesday 8 February.

There is, however, still time to stop this extraordinary and extreme, radical and unprecedented – and downright dangerous – law, but only if you make your opposition to it known right now.

There are a number of actions you can take, today:

Tell Labor MPs and Senators to vote against the Religious Discrimination Bill using this simple Just.Equal Australia webform and tell moderate Liberal MPs and Senators to do the same, using this simple webform too

Use this Equality Australia webform to write to your local MP, from any political party, urging them to oppose the Religious Discrimination Bill

Contact the following list of moderate and/or lesbian and gay Liberal MPs and Senators, expressing your serious concerns about the Bill and asking them to cross the floor to protect the rights of all Australians (using their contact details from Parliament House):
- Angie Bell (Member for Moncrieff)
- Dave Sharma (Wentworth)
- Katie Allen (Higgins)
- Fiona Martin (Reid)
- Trevor Evans (Brisbane)
- Tim Wilson (Goldstein)
- Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney)
- Warren Entsch (Leichhardt)
- Bridget Archer (Bass)
- Andrew Bragg (Senator for New South Wales)
- Richard Colbeck (Senator for Tasmania), and
- Dean Smith (Senator for Western Australia).

Together, we can ensure the Religious Discrimination Bill is rejected, for the benefit of women, LGBT people, people with disability, people of minority faiths and many, many other Australians whose rights would be at risk if this divisive law was allowed to pass.

[NB This article is written in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of employers, past or present.]

LGBT kids don’t need more hollow promises

Posted on November 21, 2021 by Alastair Lawrie

On Thursday, it was reported that Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has written to the Australian Law Reform Commission, asking for ‘detailed drafting’ to protect LGBT children from discrimination in faith-based schools.

‘It is … the government’s position that no child should be suspended or expelled from school on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity,’ wrote Cash.

There are at least six reasons why this seemingly positive expression of support for LGBT kids is a bitterly disappointing statement of hollow nothingness.

First, we’ve heard this all before. On 11 October 2018 the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, stated unequivocally: ‘We do not think that children should be discriminated against’. He promised to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to protect LGBT students in religious schools against discrimination before the end of that year.

That was more than 3 years ago. 1,137 days to be exact (and yes, I’m counting). In that time, the Morrison Government has failed to do anything concrete to implement its promise.

Second, the Attorney-General was writing to ask the ALRC to do what it was already tasked to do by her predecessor, Christian Porter, back in April 2019. His original terms of reference requested the Commission to review religious exemptions, ‘having regard to… the importance of protecting the rights of all people, and children in particular, to be free from discrimination in education.’

More than 30 months later, the new Attorney-General is trying to spin a request for ‘detailed drafting’ as being something new. Exactly how that varies from ordinary ALRC recommendations is a distinction without a difference.

Third, we don’t need ‘detailed drafting’. We know how to protect LGBT students in religious schools against discrimination. Four jurisdictions – Queensland, Tasmania, the ACT and NT – have already done so. Tasmania has been protecting LGBT kids, successfully, for more than 23 years. The amendments required are simple. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

Fourth, there’s not even a need to invent a new Bill. In response to the Prime Minister’s promise to protect LGBT kids in October 2018, the Labor Opposition introduced their own legislation the following month (the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018). The schedule of substantive amendments came to a grand total of 70 words.

If the ALRC reports in 2023, and the Government finally takes action that same year (both of which remain big ifs), it could end up taking them 5 years to draft 70 words. At just over one word per month, they’re certainly pacing themselves.

Fifth, we can see from the time and energy expended on the Religious Discrimination Bill where the Government’s real priorities lie.

We’ve already gone through two rounds of public exposure drafts on the ‘religious freedom’ Bills package (which actually comprises three separate Bills). We’ve had 157 pages of draft legislation, before we even get to the third and final version(s) next week.

The drafting effort that has gone into the Religious Discrimination Bill demonstrates what happens when a Government wants to get something done. The comparative lack of effort in drafting straight-forward amendments to protect LGBT kids reveals what happens when they don’t.

Sixth, based on Senator Cash’s correspondence, it’s not even clear whether the Government supports ending all discrimination against LGBT students, or only removing the ability of religious schools to suspend or expel them. If it’s just the latter, then other forms of mistreatment would continue to be permitted, and the harm they experience will go on.

A child who was in Year 7 when the Prime Minister first promised to protect them from discrimination is on track to finish high school before he keeps that promise. That’s an entire generation of LGBT kids abandoned because they’re not considered a priority by their own Government.

LGBT kids don’t need more ‘detailed drafting’. They need action. What do we have instead? The Attorney-General sending the emptiest of gestures to the Australian Law Reform Commission, asking them to do something they’ve already been tasked to do.

It is a fig-leaf trying to cover up years of the Morrison Government’s inaction. But nothing can hide their lack of care about this issue. Because if they cared, it would have been fixed years ago.

The tragedy of it all is that, for as long as the Government prevaricates and obfuscates, vulnerable children are left exposed to abuse and mistreatment, discrimination, suspension and even expulsion, just because of who they are.

LGBT students deserve the right to learn in safety. Instead, Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws grant religious schools extraordinary special privileges to discriminate against them.

It’s time Scott Morrison stopped running away from his promise to LGBT kids

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Alastair Lawrie

Today marks an unhappy milestone for LGBT Australians: 1,000 days since Scott Morrison first committed to ending discrimination against LGBT students by religious schools, saying ‘We do not think that children should be discriminated against.’

It was a promise made amidst the significant backlash following the leaking of the Religious Freedom Review recommendations, from a public who were surprised to learn taxpayer-funded faith schools could mistreat, and even expel, kids just because of who they are. And it was made in the middle of the Wentworth by-election campaign.

In committing to remove these special privileges before the end of 2018, Morrison said what he needed to say to get himself out of a tricky political situation. But he never did what was needed to be done to ensure LGBT students were finally protected under the Sex Discrimination Act.

Instead, Morrison has been running away from his promise ever since. If only he ran the national vaccine rollout as quickly, maybe I wouldn’t be writing this from lockdown.

Morrison never even introduced amendments to Parliament to give effect to his commitment, let alone tried to pass them. And refused to support Labor legislation which would have achieved the same goal.

By April 2019 – on the day before the writs were issued for the federal election – Morrison’s then-Attorney-General Christian Porter referred the broader issue of ‘religious exceptions’ to anti-discrimination law to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) for review.

After his re-election, Morrison preferred to prioritise granting even more special privileges to religious organisations through the ‘Religious Freedom Bills’, and put the fate of LGBT students on hold. Literally. In March 2020, Porter amended the ALRC reporting deadline to be ’12 months from the date the Religious Discrimination Bill is passed by Parliament.’

With the Religious Discrimination Bill delayed by the pandemic, the earliest it could be passed is the end of 2021, meaning the ALRC won’t report until at least late 2022.

And, of course, given the serious problems of the first two exposure draft Religious Discrimination Bills – including undermining inclusive workplaces and access to healthcare – there are many who will be trying to stop it from passing (myself included).

Either way, based on current ALRC timelines, and assuming both that Morrison wins re-election and still feels bound by a promise first made in October 2018, he will not even start drafting legislation until 2023. LGBT students in religious schools would not be protected against discrimination until 2024. At the earliest.

Put another way, LGBT students in year 7 when Scott Morrison first promised to protect them will have finished school before he finally gets around to doing it. If he ever does.

Today might mark 1,000 days since Morrison’s broken promise, but I am more concerned about a larger number: the thousands, and perhaps even tens of thousands, of LGBT students who have been, and are still being, harmed because of his inaction.

For many, that harm will be long-lasting, scarring them far beyond the school gates. I know, because that’s what happened to me.

Not only was my religious boarding school in 1990s Queensland deeply homophobic, from rules targeting same-sex students to a pastor implying gay kids should kill themselves, it helped create a toxic environment which encouraged verbal, and physical, abuse by students against any kid who exhibited any kind of difference. I suffered both.

Like Scott Morrison, I attempted to run away; I spent more than a decade trying to outrun the depression caused by those experiences. But it eventually caught up to me, and age 29 I almost succeeded in what that pastor had hinted I should do.

I was extremely lucky to survive, and even luckier that, with self-care, plenty of support and the love of a good man, I finally managed to thrive.

But whether LGBT kids are able to survive their childhoods should not be a matter of chance. Every LGBT student, in every school, deserves the right to thrive.

As dark as my story is, there is also hope. Because in 2002, the Queensland Government amended their Anti-Discrimination Act to remove the ability of religious schools to discriminate against LGBT students. And I am reliably informed, by multiple sources, that my boarding school is now vastly more accepting of diversity of sexual orientation.

All it takes is a commitment to actions, not just words. Indeed, the ACT Government also responded to the 2018 Religious Freedom Review with a promise to protect LGBT students, and teachers, in religious schools – something they passed before the end of that year.

In contrast, Prime Minister Morrison is still running. Running away from his October 2018 promise. And running away from his obligation to ensure all students have the right to learn in a safe environment. It’s time Morrison stopped running, and allowed LGBT kids to thrive.

*****

Take Action

It is clear from the history of this issue that Prime Minister Morrison is not going to take action just because it is the right thing to do. He will only make this change if we put enough pressure on him. On that basis, it’s up to all of us to tell Morrison that:

It’s time to honour your October 2018 promise to protect LGBT students in religious schools against discrimination on the basis of who they are
It’s time to help LGBT kids thrive no matter which school they attend, and
It’s time to stop delaying this much-needed reform and just get it done already.

There are a variety of ways you can let him know your thoughts:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottmorrison4cook

Email webform: https://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm

Mail: The Hon Scott Morrison MP Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Telephone (Parliament House Office): (02) 6277 7700

Don’t forget to add a personal comment explaining why this issue is important to you.

Oh, and just in case Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese feels like he can avoid this issue, we also need the ALP to be much clearer on where it stands. In particular, we should be asking ‘Albo’:

Do you publicly commit to protecting LGBT students in religious schools against discrimination on the basis of who they are? and
Will you pass legislation giving effect to this commitment in the first six months of your term if you win the next federal election?

Anthony Albanese’s contact details include:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlboMP

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlboMP

Email: A.Albanese.MP@aph.gov.au

Mail: The Hon Anthony Albanese MP PO Box 6022 House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Telephone (Parliament House Office): (02) 6277 4022

So, readers, it’s time to get writing/calling. Thanks in advance for standing up for LGBT kids.

*****

For LGBTI people, if this post has raised issues for you, please contact QLife on 1800 184 527, or via webchat: https://qlife.org.au/

Or contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14.

[Scott Morrison with Member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma]. Morrison first committed to protecting LGBT students in religious schools against discrimination during the October 2018 Wentworth by-election – a promise he has been running away from ever since.

Finally, if you have appreciated reading this article, please consider subscribing to receive future posts, via the right-hand scroll bar on the desktop version of this blog or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus

A Pride Flag for NSW

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Alastair Lawrie

Today (26 March 2021) marks exactly ten years since the election of the NSW Liberal/National Government.

In that decade, and especially in their early years, they have passed a few important LGBT law reforms, including the long-overdue abolition of the homosexual advance defence (or ‘gay panic’ defence) in 2014 and establishing a scheme to expunge historical criminal records for same-sex intercourse in the same year.

However, the pace of reform has slowed markedly in recent times. The last new LGBTI laws were both passed in 2018, with the removal of ‘forced trans divorce’ (although this was necessitated by the passage of marriage equality in Commonwealth law, while NSW failed to seize the opportunity to amend identity laws more generally) and the introduction of an offence for publicly threatening or inciting violence against others, including on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status (although it replaced existing criminal vilification offences on the basis of homosexuality and transgender status, and as far as I am aware has not been enforced since it commenced).

Indeed, with this week also marking the halfway point of the Liberal/National Government’s third term, there have been no new laws passed addressing LGBTI issues since then, and none appear to be on the horizon.

This is not because the job of LGBTI law reform in NSW is complete. Far from it. As I have written previously, NSW now has the worst LGBT laws in Australia, and is only saved from that title with respect to intersex issues because some other jurisdictions are similarly appalling.

At least part of the problem is that many people, both inside and especially outside our communities, erroneously believe the struggle is over. Which is where my idea for a pride flag for NSW comes in.

From my perspective, the pride flag is inherently political. A symbol of our strength and resilience in overcoming anti-LGBTI prejudice and abuse, as well as a reminder to continue fighting until all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are truly ‘free and equal’.

With that in mind, here is what I think the six colours of the ‘traditional’ pride flag^[i] could stand for in NSW today, as a way of bringing attention to at least some of the essential reforms which are still yet to be won here.

Red: Ban conversion practices

Anti-gay and anti-trans conversion practices (sometimes described as ‘ex-gay’ or ‘ex-trans’ therapy) continue in Australia today. Several jurisdictions have already taken steps to ban these practices, with general prohibitions, including in religious environments, now law in Victoria and the ACT, and a more limited ban, only covering health settings, in Queensland. Other states, including Tasmania, are actively considering their own legislation.

To date, the Berejiklian Liberal/National Government has given no firm indication they are considering laws to outlaw these destructive practices. They need to be pressured into taking urgent action to stop them.

Amber/Orange: Protect LGBT students & teachers

By now, we are all familiar with ‘amber alerts’ in the media to draw attention to vulnerable children in danger. Well, every day in NSW there should be an amber alert for LGBT kids – because, in 2021, religious schools are still legally permitted to discriminate against them on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

That is in part because of Scott Morrison’s broken promise from 2018 to amend the Sex Discrimination Act 1984(Cth) to remove the special privileges allowing religious schools to abuse, mistreat, suspend or even expel students just because of who they are.

But it is also because the Berejiklian Liberal/National Government refuses to repeal the special privileges contained in its own law, the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW). Indeed, the exceptions in NSW are actually worse, because they permit all private schools, colleges and universities to discriminate, not just those that are religious (making NSW the only jurisdiction in Australia to do so).

Of course, LGBT students are not the only victims of such discrimination. The same provisions also allow private educational authorities to discriminate against LGBT teachers.

If we genuinely want our schools to be safe learning environments where all people are encouraged to reach their full potential, then the NSW Government must protect both LGBT students and teachers from discrimination.

Yellow: End coercive intersex surgeries

As I have written elsewhere, the worst human rights abuses currently affecting any part of the Australian LGBTI community are coercive medical treatments, including surgeries and other interventions, on children born with intersex variations of sex characteristics.

These egregious human rights violations carry lifelong consequences which is why they must be deferred until intersex people can consent, or not consent, to them. Some jurisdictions, including Tasmania and the ACT, appear to be moving in that direction. As yet, there is no sign of similar progress in NSW.

[NB The yellow comes from the intersex pride flag, which is yellow and purple.]

Green: Improve birth certificate access

NSW now has the equal worst birth certificate laws in Australia, alongside Queensland.

Under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 (NSW), trans and gender diverse people must undergo ‘a surgical procedure involving the alteration of a person’s reproductive organs… for the purpose of assisting a person to be considered a member of the opposite sex’ before being allowed to update their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity.

This requirement is both unnecessary and inappropriate, especially when some people may not wish to undergo such surgeries, while others cannot afford to do so given the prohibitive costs involved.

NSW has fallen behind the majority of other Australian jurisdictions which have updated their birth certificate laws to allow access based on self-identification only (which is best practice), or at least without physical medical interventions. It is time the Government gave the green light to trans and gender diverse people here to access birth certificates without any medical gate-keeping.

Blue^[ii]: Trans discrimination law reform

Trans and gender diverse people in NSW are also let down by confusing and outdated anti-discrimination protections, as amply demonstrated by the controversy surrounding discriminatory efforts to prevent trans women who have not undergone surgery from accessing McIver’s Ladies Baths in Coogee.

On one hand, there is a definition of ‘recognised transgender person’ in section 4 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) which some people might, mistakenly, try to use to justify limiting access on the basis of surgery:

‘recognised transgender person means a person the record of whose sex is altered under Part 5A of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995^[iii] or under the corresponding provisions of a law of another Australian jurisdiction.’

Except the substantive protections against transgender discrimination apply irrespective of whether the person has had surgery. According to section 38A:

‘A reference in this Part to a person being transgender or a transgender person is a reference to a person, whether or not the person is a recognised transgender person–

(a) who identifies as a member of the opposite sex by living, or seeking to live, as a member of the opposite sex, or

(b) who has identified as a member of the opposite sex by living as a member of the opposite sex…

and includes a reference to the person being thought of as a transgender person, whether the person is, or was, in fact a transgender person’ [emphasis added].

Which means discriminating against transgender women who have not had surgery would probably be found to be unlawful.

Given this, the misleading definition of ‘recognised transgender person’ should be removed from section 4.

However, that would still not address a far bigger problem, including with the broader definition in section 38A: it likely only applies to people with ‘binary’ gender identities, because of its use of the outdated concept of ‘opposite sex’.

In other words, non-binary people in NSW are not explicitly covered by the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977. The NSW Government must remedy this by replacing ‘transgender’ with ‘gender identity’, potentially based on the definition in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth):

‘gender identity means the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person (whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth’.

Lavender/Purple: Bisexual discrimination law reform

The definition of transgender is not the only outdated terminology in the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW). The other protected attribute covering (some parts) of the LGBTI community is currently ‘homosexual.’ Section 4 of the Act defines that term to mean ‘male or female homosexual.’

That narrow definition means NSW’s anti-discrimination laws are the only such laws in Australia that fail to protect bisexuals against discrimination.

This omission is truly appalling. It is well beyond time for the NSW Government to update the Anti-Discrimination Act to cover sexual orientation generally, in line with other jurisdictions including the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984:

‘sexual orientation means a person’s sexual orientation towards:

(a) persons of the same sex; or

(b) persons of a different sex; or

[NB The lavender comes from the bisexual pride flag, which is pink, lavender and blue.]

The six issues discussed above are of course not an exhaustive list. There are plenty of other LGBTI laws and policies which also need to be amended by NSW to provide genuine equality to its citizens irrespective of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.^[iv]

But, in my opinion, these are some of the most essential reforms in order for people to feel pride that we are making real progress in overcoming homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and intersexphobia.

I started this article by highlighting the fact today is the 10^th anniversary of the election of the NSW Liberal/National Government.

Coincidentally, today also marks 100 weeks until the planned opening ceremony of World Pride 2023 in Sydney.

That means Premier Gladys Berejiklian has exactly 100 weeks to deliver on each of the six issues identified here.

If her Liberal/National Government fails to make these long-overdue and much-needed changes in that time, then I suggest we fly this ‘pride flag for NSW’ at half-mast during that opening ceremony to acknowledge the damage inflicted and pain caused by their ongoing inaction.

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Footnotes:

^[i] I also personally support the newer ‘Progress’ version of the pride flag, incorporating both elements of the trans flag, and black and brown stripes to represent people of colour.

^[ii] The blue here could either represent part of the trans pride flag – which is blue, pink and white – or the blue of the Pacific Ocean at McIver’s Ladies Baths.

^[iii] Which, as we have seen, only allows the granting of new identity documentation following invasive surgeries.

^[iv] Indeed, the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) also needs to be updated to include a new protected attribute of ‘sex characteristics’ covering intersex people, and to remove the general exception in section 56(d) which allows a wide range of religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT employees and people accessing their services.

alastairlawrie

lgbti advocate & activist, writing about anti-discrimination and vilification law reform, equality and human rights

Tag Archives: LGBT students

Sydney: World Pride and Legal Prejudice

NSW Equality Bill Submission

The worst of times

Letter to Dominic Perrottet re Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill

If you thought the Religious Discrimination Bill was bad, wait til you hear about Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill

5 things we learned from the Senate Hearings into the Religious Discrimination Bill

Why the Religious Discrimination Bill must be rejected (in 1000 words or less)

LGBT kids don’t need more hollow promises

It’s time Scott Morrison stopped running away from his promise to LGBT kids

A Pride Flag for NSW