Almost two weeks after the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, the NSW LGBTIQ community has been given a belated reason to celebrate.
Yesterday (Wednesday 16 March), the NSW Government finally released its response to Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill (formally called the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020), in which they categorically rejected his proposed legislation.
This was a law that, if passed, would have erased trans and gender diverse students from classrooms and schoolyards across the State.
It also would have introduced a Thatcher-esque section 28-style prohibition on positive references to LGBTQ people generally (modelled after a UK law from the 1980s and 90s which harmed a generation of queer kids there).
As well as enacting a new offensive and stigmatising definition of intersex people in NSW legislation.
Importantly, the Perrottet Liberal/National Government also rejected key recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Latham’s Bill (which, in a disturbing conflict of interest, featured Latham himself as Chair). This included ruling out:
Banning trans students from using the bathroom reflecting their gender identity
Outing trans students to non-supportive parents, even where this puts the student in danger
Stopping trans students from seeking confidential help from school counsellors, and
Outing trans students to all of the parents of other students in their year group.
The Government’s decision to reject Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill, and key recommendations of his biased inquiry, is obviously incredibly welcome.
Above all, it is a huge relief to LGBTIQ students, and especially trans and gender diverse kids and their families, who no longer need fear his legislative attack on their right to a safe and inclusive education.
However, this does not mean we should be overly-congratulatory towards the NSW Government either.
For example, in their response the Government notes, as one of their reasons for rejecting the Bill, that it ‘may lead to targeted discrimination against a marginalised community which already experiences poorer mental health and wellbeing outcomes’ (ie trans and nonbinary children and young people).
Which is true. But it was also true on the day Latham first introduced his legislation way back in August 2020.
There was no need for a drawn-out Parliamentary Inquiry to tell them that.
There was definitely no need to refer it to Latham’s Committee for that Inquiry.
There was no justification for all three Government members of that Inquiry to support the main elements of Latham’s Bill, including backing harmful recommendations about outing trans kids, and preventing them from accessing bathrooms, or seeking help from counsellors.
And there was clearly no justification for the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Kevin Conolly, to express his personal support for the Bill (noting that he remains in that portfolio today).
The NSW Government could, and should, have spared the trans community from being forced to endure yet another debate about their very existence, by rejecting the Bill from the outset rather than taking 19 months and giving One Nation a platform to spread their transphobia in the meantime.
So, while the response yesterday was the right outcome, the tortuous route it took them to arrive there means they deserve, at best, a polite clap rather than a standing ovation.
The second reason why we should not be giving thunderous applause to the NSW Government is that all they have done is stop the situation in NSW from getting worse.
LGBTIQ people in NSW still woke up this morning in the worst jurisdiction for their legal rights in the country. Just as they did yesterday, and as they will tomorrow.
This includes having the worst anti-discrimination laws, which fail to protect bisexual people (the only place in Australia not to do so), nonbinary people, and intersex people. And which have extraordinary exceptions, allowing all private schools and colleges, religious and non-religious alike, to discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers.
NSW will likely also soon be the only state or territory which requires trans and gender diverse people to have genital surgery in order to update their birth certificate (assuming Queensland follows through on its promises to reform their own laws this year).
NSW has made no progress on, or given any firm commitments to, prohibiting sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices (which have already been banned in Victoria and the ACT, partially banned in Queensland, with bans under active consideration elsewhere).
And NSW has also shown no signs it will end what I consider to be the worst human rights abuses against any part of the LGBTIQ community: coercive surgeries and other non-consensual medical interventions on children born with innate variations in sex characteristics (with the ACT and Victorian Governments already committed to reform in this area, and realistic hope for change in at least one other jurisdiction).
All the NSW Government did yesterday was rule out taking another step backwards.
But even standing still means that, with each and every passing year, NSW falls further and further behind on LGBTIQ law reform.
Next week (Friday 25 March) will mark exactly one year to go until the next State election.
That’s a full 12 months for the Perrottet Liberal/National Government to do more than just publicly reject a terrible law attacking some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and instead to make long-overdue progress on at least some, if not all, of the above-mentioned law reforms to make the lives of LGBTIQ people in NSW better.
If they do, they will have actually earned some real praise.
Finally, lest I be accused of being partisan, we cannot let the Minns Labor Opposition off the hook on this subject either.
Because they too have failed to publicly condemn Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill over the past 19 months.
They too voted for it to be referred to a Parliamentary Inquiry chaired by Latham himself.
And, disappointingly, they also had one of their two members on that Inquiry support the main elements of Latham’s Bill, including backing harmful recommendations about outing trans kids, and preventing them from accessing bathrooms, or seeking help from counsellors.
That’s simply not good enough. Nor is the fact that, one year out from what looks to be a highly competitive election, we currently know next-to-nothing about Labor’s plans on the issues described earlier.
It’s time for them to demonstrate to the LGBTIQ community exactly what they would do to end NSW’s reign as the jurisdiction with the worst laws in Australia.
In summary, then, while I am happy and relieved for LGBTIQ students, and trans and gender diverse kids in particular, that Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill has finally been rejected, I am far from satisfied with the current state of law reform in NSW. We can and must demand better, from both the Perrottet Liberal/National Government, and Minns Labor Opposition.
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.
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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.
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.
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).
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.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, you can sign up to receive updates about this and other issues from this blog, via the right-hand scroll bar on desktop, or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus
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.
The next 12 months will be important in the history of LGBTIQ law reform in Australia.
There is the genuine possibility of long-overdue progress finally being made on key LGBTIQ human rights issues, at least in some jurisdictions.
At the same time, there is a real risk rights will be stripped away from our community, under Commonwealth law, in NSW and potentially elsewhere.
This post discusses five LGBTIQ law reform issues which, in my view, must be high priorities in 2022.
Please note before we start that a) they are *not* listed in order of priority and b) this list is by no means exhaustive – there is still a long way to go on the road to genuine legal and substantive equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer Australians.
Stopping the Commonwealth Religious Discrimination Bill
The Morrison Government introduced the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 into Commonwealth Parliament at the end of last year, and will attempt to pass it before the federal election in May.
It must be stopped before it inflicts significant harm on women, LGBT people, people with disability and people of minority faiths, among many other members of the Australian community.
The Bill takes away existing protections under all Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws, including the best practice Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, in order to allow offensive, humiliating, insulting and ridiculing comments, as long as they are motivated by religious belief.
This will obviously include legal protection for a wide range of demeaning and derogatory speech that is homophobic, biphobic and transphobic.
The Bill also introduces ‘religious exceptions’ that are far broader than any other Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination law, both in the excessive scope of the organisations covered, and by adopting a test to determine whether these organisations are allowed to discriminate that is much, much more lenient than any other law.
The people at most risk are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and atheist employees of publicly-funded religious schools, hospitals, aged care facilities, housing and disability service providers.
However, these extraordinary exceptions will also be used to discriminate against LGBT students and teachers in religious schools. This discrimination will be done ‘under the guise of religious views’ – on the basis of a student’s or teacher’s religious beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity, rather than on those attributes directly – but the outcome is still the same: LGBT kids and workers being legally discriminated against.
In my view, the worst human rights violations currently occurring against any part of the Australian LGBTIQ community are coercive surgeries and other non-consensual medical interventions on children born with variations in sex characteristics.
There is no justification for the ongoing contravention of the right to bodily integrity for intersex children.
Nor is there any excuse for the fact that, as at February 2022, no Australian Government has legislated to ban these human rights abuses. Especially when ending these practices was first recommended by a bi-partisan Senate Committee way back in October 2013.
Thankfully, 2022 might be the year progress is finally achieved, with the ACT Government committing to introduce legislation in the first half of the year. The Victorian Government has also promised to end these practices, although it is unclear whether they will take action before the state election in November 2022 (and would be incredibly disappointing if they didn’t).
There have been reports in other jurisdictions, including a 2020 Tasmanian Law Reform Institute Inquiry report, and a 2021 report from the Australian Human Rights Commission. But, really, the time for reports is over. It’s time for all states and territories, as well as the Commonwealth Government, to take concrete steps to end these human rights violations.
To stay up to date, follow Intersex Human Rights Australia on twitter and facebook and check out their website where you can donate if you have the capacity.
3. Removing barriers to identity documents for trans and gender diverse people
In 2022, there are still two Australian jurisdictions that require transgender people to have genital surgery in order to access birth certificates and other identity documents which reflect their gender identity: New South Wales and Queensland.
One other jurisdiction, Western Australia, requires transgender people to have physical medical treatments before updating their identity documents.
This situation is simply not good enough.
Trans and gender diverse people must be allowed to update their birth certificates on the basis of self-identification alone, without the need for surgery or other physical medical treatments, and without the need for doctors or other medical gate-keepers like counsellors or psychologists to ‘approve’ their identity.
And obviously all jurisdictions must provide recognition for gender identities beyond the binaries of male and female.
In good news, the Queensland Government has promised to take action on this issue early this year. While the Western Australian Government is sitting on a 2018 WA Law Reform Commission report which recommended sweeping changes to their laws.
Meanwhile in NSW? Nothing. No signs of progress. At all. Which will be incredibly embarrassing in February and March 2023, as Sydney plays host to World Pride, with what will likely be the worst birth certificate laws in the country.
NSW is also the site of one of the worst attacks on LGBTI rights in Australia this century: Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020.
This legislation would effectively erase trans and gender diverse children from classrooms and schoolyards across the state. Teachers and principals would be liable to be dismissed simply for acknowledging the existence of trans and gender diverse people, while the kids themselves would be left completely on their own, exposed to bullying, and without the life-saving support of school counsellors.
Other LGBT students would also suffer, with the Bill including a provision based on the infamous section 28 from Thatcher-era Britain, which harmed a generation of LGBT kids before being abandoned two decades ago. And there’s an offensive and stigmatising definition of intersex in the Bill, too.
A Committee chaired by Mark Latham himself recommended core parts of the Bill be implemented as policy in NSW (with other recommendations going even further, such as banning trans girls from using bathrooms matching their gender identity). Disappointingly, all three Coalition MPs, and one of the two Labor MPs, on that Committee, supported these recommendations.
The NSW Government, and new(ish) Premier Dominic Perrottet, must respond to this Committee report by 7 March (ie the Monday after Mardi Gras). There is a very real risk NSW will introduce changes this year that would not look out of place in Republican-heartland USA. This disgusting transphobic attack on vulnerable kids must be resisted.
Rather than simply defending our existing anti-discrimination laws from attack (see the Religious Discrimination Bill, above), we need to also take urgent action to address many of the serious short-comings of Australia’s current LGBTI anti-discrimination framework.
Indeed, both the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984, and the laws of most – although not all* – states and territories should be significantly improved. This includes:
Commonwealth
The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), should be amended to:
Replace the protected attribute of ‘intersex status’ with ‘sex characteristics’
Remove religious exceptions which allow religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers and people accessing services, including LGBT students, teachers and other staff at religious schools
Prohibit vilification on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, and
Create a Discrimination Commissioner with responsibility for sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) must also be amended to explicitly cover gender identity and sex characteristics – currently, it only mentions sexual orientation, meaning protections for trans, gender diverse and intersex employees are not guaranteed.
New South Wales
The Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) is the worst LGBTI anti-discrimination law in Australia, and needs significant modernisation, including:
Protect bisexual people against discrimination by replacing the protected attribute of ‘homosexuality’ with ‘sexual orientation’ (NSW is the only jurisdiction in Australia that currently does not protect bisexuals)
Protect non-binary people against discrimination by replaced the protected attribute of ‘transgender’ with ‘gender identity’
Protect intersex people against discrimination by introducing a protected attribute of sex characteristics
Remove specific exceptions which allow all private schools, colleges and universities (religious and non-religious alike) to discriminate against LGBT students and staff
Remove specific exceptions which allow discrimination by religious adoption agencies
Remove the general religious exceptions which allow religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers and people accessing services, and
Ensure prohibitions on vilification apply to all of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
Victoria
Recent amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic), which have yet to take effect, mean many problems there have already been addressed (although the Commonwealth Religious Discrimination Bill could strip away hard-won protections from LGBT teachers and other staff in religious schools, before they even commence).
However, the major outstanding item of business is the introduction of prohibitions on anti-LGBTI vilification (something which has already been considered by a Parliamentary Committee, and the Government has committed to do, but is awaiting implementation).
Queensland
The Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld) could be improved in several key areas, including:
Introduce a protected attribute of sex characteristics, for both discrimination and anti-vilification
Update the definition of ‘gender identity’ to ensure non-binary people are protected against discrimination
Amend the religious exceptions applying to LGBT teachers and other staff in religious schools, to remove the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ approach and replace it with stronger protection (noting that LGBT students are already protected)
Remove the general religious exceptions which allow other religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers), and
Remove the specific exception which allows discrimination against transgender employees where the job involves working with children (s28(1), which is particularly abhorrent).
Fortunately, the Queensland Human Rights Commission is currently undertaking a review of discrimination protections under the Act, while a Parliamentary Committee has recently recommended updating its anti-vilification protections.
Western Australia
The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (WA) is probably second only to NSW in terms of worst LGBTI anti-discrimination legislation in Australia. It desperately needs amendments, including:
Protect intersex people against discrimination by adding a protected attribute of sex characteristics
Replace the current extremely-limited transgender protections (which only cover people who have had their gender identity recognised by the Government, and which is therefore restricted to people who have had genital surgery) with the much broader protected attribute of ‘gender identity’
Remove religious exceptions which allow religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers and people accessing services, including LGBT students, teachers and other staff at religious schools, and
Prohibit vilification on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
The Western Australian Law Reform Commission is currently undertaking a review of the Equal Opportunity Act.
South Australia
The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (SA) could be improved in a number of ways, such as:
Replace the protected attribute of ‘intersex status’ with ‘sex characteristics’, while amending its religious exceptions to ensure they do not permit discrimination on this attribute
Clarify that the religious exceptions are not intended to allow discrimination against LGBT students in religious schools
Remove other religious exceptions which allow religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers and people accessing services, including LGBT teachers and other staff at religious schools, and
Prohibit vilification on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
Australian Capital Territory
The Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT) is the second best LGBTI anti-discrimination law in Australia. There is one major reform outstanding – removing the ability of religious organisations, other than schools, to discriminate against LGBT workers and peoples accessing their services (noting that LGBT students, teachers and other staff in religious schools are already protected against discrimination).
Thankfully, the issue of religious exceptions is currently under review by the ACT Government.
Northern Territory
Unlike the ACT, the Anti-Discrimination Act (NT) has fallen well behind best practice, and requires significant updating to:
Replace the current definition of ‘sexuality’ (which erroneously includes ‘transsexuality’) with a protected attribute of ‘sexual orientation’
Protect trans and gender diverse people against discrimination by adding a protected attribute of ‘gender identity’
Protect intersex people against discrimination by adding a protected attribute of ‘sex characteristics’
Remove religious exceptions which allow religious organisations to discriminate against LGBT workers and people accessing services, including LGBT teachers and other staff at religious schools (noting that LGBT students are already protected), and
Prohibit vilification on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
*Observant readers would note the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is not included in this list, because it is already close to best practice on these key points (protected attributes, religious exceptions and anti-vilification prohibition).
In my opinion, these five LGBTIQ law reform issues should be high priorities in 2022. However, as well as being placed in no particular order, I would also reiterate this list is by no means exhaustive either.
Other important LGBTIQ law reform priorities include ensuring that states and territories other than Victoria and the ACT prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices (including making sure the partial ban in Queensland is extended beyond health care settings).
Nor is law reform the only necessary pre-condition for substantive equality for LGBTIQ people, which must also be achieved through a variety of other measures, not least of which is funding (such as providing no-cost access via Medicare for gender identity-related health care, including full coverage of transition expenses).
Anyway, as with previous years, our agenda is big but our ambition, and determination, are bigger. Let’s get to work to make a better future for LGBTIQ Australians.
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[NB This article is written in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of employers, past or present.]
Sydney World Pride is now just 17 months away. With the official Opening Ceremony scheduled for 24 February 2023, it promises to be one of the largest LGBTI celebrations in a post-pandemic world.
Unfortunately, when it comes to LGBTI law reform, there is very little reason to celebrate.
The NSW Anti-Discrimination Act is the worst LGBTI anti-discrimination law in the country. It’s the only one that fails to protect bisexuals, and the only one allowing all private schools, religious and non-religious alike, to discriminate against LGBT students. The ADA also excludes nonbinary people, and people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
While Queensland, the ACT and Victoria have already prohibited gay and trans conversion practices (to varying extents), and other states consider this vital reform, there’s no clear commitment for NSW to do the same.
Nor has the NSW Government promised to prohibit what are the worst of all human rights abuses against the LGBTI community: coercive surgeries and other involuntary medical treatments on intersex children.
In this context, it’s depressing to realise the next step on LGBTI rights here is likely to be a great leap backwards.
Earlier this month, a NSW Parliamentary Committee recommended adoption of the core elements of Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, more accurately known as his anti-trans kids Bill.
That includes support for a domestic version of the UK’s infamous ‘section 28’, which traumatised a generation of LGBT students there before being abandoned in 2003.
By threatening teachers with having their accreditation revoked for mentioning anything ‘political or ideological’ in relation to gender or sexuality – which could be as simple as telling struggling gay kids that who they are is perfectly okay – it will drive most teachers to say nothing at all, creating the perfect conditions for ignorance and shame to thrive.
Even worse are the proposed changes to Bulletin 55: Transgender Students in Schools, which would (among other things):
Prohibit students from confidentially coming out as transgender to their teachers or school counsellors
Effectively ban transgender students from being able to access toilets or changerooms matching their gender identity, and
Out students who transition while at school to the parents of every other student in their year group.
These anti-trans rules are just the tip of the iceberg. This Bill, and associated Committee Report, are truly a Titanic-size assault on the rights of trans and gender diverse kids in NSW.
In policing children’s names and pronouns, their ability to play sport and even go to the bathroom, these are really Texas Republican Party-level interventions in the daily lives of people whose lives don’t matter to them.
It is, frankly, embarrassing. And no-one should be more embarrassed than Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who for 13 months has steadfastly refused to condemn, or even comment on, these proposed changes – all the while allowing Latham to chair the inquiry into his own Bill.
The Government now has six months to respond (coincidentally, the deadline is the Monday after next year’s Mardi Gras). With more Coalition MPs so far publicly expressing support for the Bill than opposing it, the starting assumption has to be they are more likely to implement these changes than reject them.
And if they do? The biggest victims will be a generation of trans and nonbinary kids whose own Government will be actively seeking to erase their very existence, closely followed by other LGBT students who will be offered silence rather than support from their schools.
As for World Pride, well, it seems highly likely there would be a global boycott – one I would fully endorse. To do otherwise would be to invite the world to come and dance over the bodies of trans kids, killed by the transphobia of NSW Parliamentarians.
Even if it ultimately does not pass, the debate since August 2020 has already caused significant harm to trans kids in NSW, and to the families who love them.
If we cannot keep trans kids safe, if we cannot protect LGBT students in private schools against discrimination, if we cannot stop the psychological torture from gay and trans conversion practices, if we cannot prevent the physical torture of intersex children – if we can’t defend the most vulnerable among us – tell me again what exactly we would be celebrating at Sydney World Pride?
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In August 2020, NSW One Nation MLC Mark Latham introduced the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. As I wrote at the time, this Bill is the worst legislative attack on LGBTI rights in Australia this century.
In particular, Latham’s Bill seeks to erase trans and gender diverse students from classrooms and schoolyards across NSW. It would also establish a UK ‘section 28’-style prohibition on positive references to anything at all to do with LGBT people, as well as introducing an offensive and stigmatising definition of intersex variations of sex characteristics.
This Bill should have been immediately rejected by the Berejiklian Liberal/National Government and (at the time McKay) Labor Opposition. Instead, Coalition and Labor Members of the Legislative Council voted to refer the Bill for inquiry by the Portfolio Committee No. 3 – Education, which just so happens to be chaired by Mark Latham himself, thus creating a serious and ongoing conflict of interest.
Even if there might be circumstances in which an MLC should be given authority to lead an inquiry into their own legislation (and, readers, I can’t think of any right now), a chair in this situation should be acutely aware of the responsibilities of their position and their obligation to act impartially and respectfully.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated in the 11 months since then, Mark Latham is not such a chair. Indeed, Mark Latham’s Inquiry into Mark Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill has been as unbalanced and transphobic as his legislation is, as evidenced in the following five areas:
Lack of trans witnesses
Latham’s inquiry conducted hearings on April 20 and 21, 2021. Across those two days, 42 witnesses were scheduled to give evidence. Do you know how many were trans or nonbinary children – that is, the people who stand to lose the most if this legislation passes?
Zero.
In fact, there was only one identified trans witness out of 42 (the amazing Teddy Cook, from ACON), plus one parent of a trans child. As far as I am aware, that means 40 witnesses out of the 42 scheduled to appear (or 95% of witnesses) were neither trans themselves nor the parent of a trans child.
This imbalance alone is enough to dismiss the validity of the entire inquiry.
It’s not like there weren’t other trans individuals and organisations ready and willing to give evidence either. As I understand it, the Gender Centre – described in its submission as ‘NSW’s leading trans led organisation, providing 95% of all trans specific services in the state’ that ‘support over 500 NSW transgender and gender diverse families generally’ – were not invited to appear.
The selection of non-trans witnesses was biased, too. Of the religious organisations invited to give evidence, only faith groups that expressed support for the Bill were given a guernsey.
As noted by Greens MLC David Shoebridge during the hearings: ‘Unfortunately, the Coalition and the Chair determined not to allow any witnesses to appear from the parts of the Christian faith who oppose the bill.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 8).
This meant religious organisations that expressed their opposition to the Bill through their submissions – including the Pitt St Uniting Church, and Uniting Church LGBTIQ Network – did not receive an invitation to appear.
In my view, the lack of trans witnesses, and biased selection of others, rendered this inquiry process illegitimate from the outset.
2. Disrespectful treatment of submitters and witnesses
It wasn’t just the selection of witnesses that was unbalanced, but also how organisations that made submissions, or appeared as witnesses, were (mis)treated – especially by the chair.
Take, for example, the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, who made a submission to the inquiry in which they expressed their opposition to Latham’s Bill.
For this ‘sin’, not only were they not invited, but they were attacked in their absence.
When Shoebridge noted that ‘The Chair and the Coalition would not allow them to come. They voted on majority to prevent them coming’, Latham ultimately responded with ‘Well, there has to be a degree of sanity here.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 36).
Imagine, as the Chair of an inquiry, thinking it appropriate to imply an organisation that made a submission to that inquiry ‘lacked sanity’.
The attack worsened from there, with Latham asking the witness from Catholic Schools NSW (who did oppose the Bill and were not coincidentally offered an invitation) to provide data about enrolment and academic performance of schools in the Parramatta Diocese specifically:
‘My understanding is that a number of the Parramatta parents are none too happy about this position and that the Parramatta diocese enrolment share and academic results have collapsed in recent times because of the so-called progressive approach to education. Do you have some data on that that you can furnish to the Committee?’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 36).
In my opinion, there can be no justification for asking questions which suggest a vendetta against religious bodies which have the temerity to take a different policy view to yours.
Nor was this the only example of Latham’s disrespect to submitters or witnesses. Later that day he made a series of what can only be described as unprofessional remarks in response to the evidence of Georgia Burke, representing the LGBTI Subcommittee of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights.
Burke: ‘… The best interests of the children are entirely disregarded with the primacy of parents put to the forefront.’
Latham: ‘Jesus, seriously.’
Burke: ‘It is interesting to reflect on the comments of the special rapporteur to which we refer in our submission.’
Latham: ‘The best interests of the children are disregarded when the parents are put to the forefront?’
Shoebridge: ‘Carry on.’
[Labor MLC Anthony] D’Adam: ‘Carry on, they are just being rude.’
Latham: ‘That is unbelievable.’
Burke: ‘His report of 2010 – and I do have a copy with me if it assists the Committee for me to table that report.’
Latham: ‘Jesus Christ.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 63).
[As an aside, it might be interesting to know what the religious fundamentalists who support Latham’s similarly-extreme ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill think about his blasphemy?]
As chair, Latham also accused witnesses of either ‘fabrication’ (saying to Ghassan Kassisieh of Equality Australia: ‘That is not what the Bill says. That is just a fabrication, I am sorry.’ Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 63), or ‘making something up’ (to Jared Wilk of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties: ‘You see, that is the problem. You are making something up about the bill that is not actually true.’ Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 65).
This is not the behaviour of somebody who should be in charge of anything, let alone an inquiry into legislation which carries the very real potential to undermine the human rights of some of the most vulnerable members of the community.
3. Allowing irrelevant evidence
The potential impact of Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill is incredibly broad – applying not just to classroom teaching, but also to ‘instruction, counselling and advice’ provided to students by principals, school counsellors, non-teaching staff, contractors, advisors and consultants, non-school based staff, contractors, advisors and consultants, and even volunteers (proposed new section 17C of the Education Act 1990).
However, one thing it doesn’t actually apply to is school sport. Despite this, Latham’s inquiry invited Katherine Deves from ‘Save Women’s Sport Australasia’ to address the Committee, where they were given free rein to make comments like:
‘It requires them [women and girls] to forego their right to compete on a level playing field in sport because fair competition is destroyed, athletic opportunities are lost and players’ safety is completely disregarded. On 1 December last year a senior bureaucrat in the NSW Sports Minister’s office told me that a woman would have to be killed before gender inclusion sports policies would be withdrawn.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 24).
And
‘We believe that the female sports category should be for female-born females only. We need to start asking boys and men to be more accommodating of non-gender-conforming boys and accommodate them in their sports instead of expecting the girls and the women, to their own detriment, to accept them into their sports. We are getting stories now of boys competing in girls’ sports and winning and taking sports on the podium and taking sports on the team and girls being harmed.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 27).[i]
Leaving to one side the lack of evidence to substantiate these claims, this testimony had nothing whatsoever to do with the Bill – a point which Shoebridge raised: ‘Point of order: There is not a single part of the terms of reference of this inquiry that relates to sport and I cannot see how either the opening submission or this question relates to the terms of reference.’
About which Latham eventually ruled: ‘I do not think censorship here is appropriate. The witness can answer the question.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 27).
Except ensuring witnesses at least vaguely stick to the terms of reference of the inquiry is not censorship, but one of the core responsibilities of a Committee Chair, something Latham spectacularly failed to fulfil here.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, women’s sport was not the only unrelated matter that was allowed to be raised – Latham also provided ample space for witnesses to talk about access to bathrooms, something that is also unaffected by his legislation.
For example, Terri Kelleher of the Australian Family Association was given the opportunity to make the following comments:
‘Why would you want to set up – because part of the instructions or guidelines for schools as a result or a flow-on from teaching gender fluidity, you know, that people are the gender they feel and it may not be their natal sex, is to allow natal males into girls’ toilets. Now, that is not saying that all males or all boys who identify as girls are going to be a threat, but it sets up a situation where that can occur. This is very serious in the light of the child-on-child sexual abuse in schools.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, pages 40-41).
And then allowed to elaborate:
‘One of the risks … is the staff is to monitor the length of time in a change room. So staff are to monitor the length of time. It puts teachers in a difficult situation. Are they to be rostered outside toilets? Does there always have to be someone supervising wherever the toilets may be used, which would be throughout the day?’ (page 41).
Which led to the following exchange between MLCs sitting on the Committee:
D’Adam: ‘Point of order: We are taking evidence on a bill that has nothing to do with unisex toilets.’
D’Adam: ‘It has nothing to do with it. It is outside the terms of reference of this inquiry and I would ask the Chair to bring the witness back to-‘
[Nationals MLC Wes] Fang: ‘I have been waiting for this one. ‘Any other matter’ – it has been called on me so many times.’
Latham: ‘Yes. Related matters. I think the use of – I raised earlier on the problem of boys declaring themselves to be girls to get into the girls’ change room. That was in order and I think this is in order as well.’ (page 41)
In effect, the Chair of the inquiry ruled that ‘bathroom panic’-style testimony was in order because he himself had raised the issue of change room access, from the Chair, earlier in the day. This is the opposite of an impartial investigation.
4. Providing a platform for transphobia
As we have already seen, by allowing witnesses to talk about unrelated matters like trans participation in sport and ‘bathroom panic’ (including rhetorically linking trans access to toilets to child sexual abuse), Latham ensured his inquiry provided a platform for transphobia. Nor were these the only examples of extreme prejudice against trans and gender diverse young people over those two days.
This includes multiple witnesses suggesting that the gender identities of the majority of trans and nonbinary kids were not real but instead the product of mental illness:
‘When parents are kept in the dark about gender ideology and about what children are exposed to related to gender fluidity, they face an increased risk of harm. School officials and others do not know of, or may disregard, a child’s personal history – perhaps trauma or abuse or other diagnosed conditions, whether autism or mental health issues. They may play a role in a child’s identity concerns.’ (Mary Hasson, Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 3).
Dianna Kenny of something called the ‘Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine’ was permitted to make the following extraordinary – and extraordinarily offensive – claim:
‘There is a very minute number of people who are what we try to call genuinely trans, and suddenly we have seen a 4,000 per cent increase in the number of young people identifying as trans. Only a tiny fraction of that 4,000 per cent increase are going to be what we call genuinely trans. The rest of them are in the thrall of the trans lobby, and they have serious mental health issues and other things that need to be addressed.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 33).
When asked by Labor MLC Anthony D’Adam about those people who Kenny claimed were not ‘genuinely transgender’ (‘Those who are not in that category – the others – you are saying that there is something wrong with them, that they are sick.’), Kenny replied:
‘It is a manifestation of serious mental health issues, yes. I work clinically with those people. I see them at close quarters. I work intensively with the families and with the young people themselves. The evidence is increasing exponentially that those young people have serious health issues that need to be addressed…’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, pages 33-34).[ii]
From my perspective, this does not read like a reasonable debate of issues related to the Bill but instead seems to be a free kick for witnesses to make derogatory comments about the mental health and wellbeing of trans and nonbinary kids.
Of course, being a parliamentary hearing about trans rights in 2021, a range of other transphobic tropes – from ‘desisters’[iii]/’de-transitioners’[iv] to ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’[v] and ‘social contagion’[vi] – made predictable appearances (and, just as predictably, none were based on high-quality, independently-verified research, because, well, it doesn’t exist).
Mark Sneddon of the Institute of Civil Society even gravely warned that: ‘What we are trying to do – or what I understand this bill is trying to do – is to reduce the social contagion influence putting more people onto the conveyor belt of gender transition.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 42).
A quote which, perhaps unintentionally, goes to the core of the whole debate. Through their evidence, these witnesses all appear to be implying that being trans or nonbinary is itself a negative thing, and should be avoided wherever possible, including through legislation which prevents students from even hearing that gender diversity exists.
Whereas the rest of us understand that a) trans and nonbinary people are a part of the natural spectrum of human gender identity (and indeed always have been), b) trans and nonbinary kids are awesome, and c) 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 abandons them to darkness and depression.
That is really what Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 is all about – keeping trans and nonbinary students in the dark. About who they are. And that who they are is okay. More than okay. Beautiful.
Latham’s legislation is deeply transphobic. Which means it is no surprise that so was the evidence of many of the witnesses appearing at his inquiry. And that includes Latham himself, who even deliberately deadnamed and misgendered a prominent transgender Australian. (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 48).
5. Giving evidence from the chair
The fifth and final way Latham’s inquiry was unbalanced is not directly linked to trans and gender diverse children, but nevertheless goes to how ‘un-parliamentary’ his behaviour was – and that was his frequent attempts to give evidence from the chair.
For example, after raising the (unverified) story of a student whose school counsellor supported their social transition against the wishes of their parents, he was asked by Shoebridge ‘Is that in evidence?’ and by D’Adam: ‘Point of order: Is the chair giving evidence?’ To which Latham replied:
‘That is in evidence – and did not tell the family. So, Jack has asked me a question. I have given you a brief summary and will be presenting more of that evidence as the inquiry unfolds…’ (emphasis added, Hearing Transcript, 20 April, pages 24-25).[vii]
Perhaps the most extreme example came when Latham attempted to ask Ghassan Kassisieh of Equality Australia about a range of non-LGBTI issues, before making unsubstantiated claims about climate change, leading not just the Greens’ David Shoebridge but even the Nationals’ Wes Fang to suggest Latham should not be doing so as chair:
Latham: ‘Climate change – that while there is evidence of warming, it is not at some of the alarmist levels that have been projected. Sea levels are not rising and Tim Flannery was wrong about his predictions that our dams in western Sydney would never fill again.’
Shoebridge: ‘Point of order: Simply making these unfounded, biased assertions from the chair on matters unrelated to the terms of reference of this inquiry is not of assistance and, in fact, it does not fit with any of the terms of reference of this inquiry.’
Fang: ‘To the point of order-‘
Latham: ‘It fits in the submission. It is the witness’s submission – wanting to know the other side of the story. I am seeking a response about the other side of the story.’
Shoebridge: ‘Call me old-fashioned but I was looking at the terms of reference of the inquiry.’
Fang: ‘To the point of order: I actually support Mr Shoebridge here. Chair, you should not be doing it and, like Mr Shoebridge, if you are going to make these unsubstantiated comments you should do it just as a participating member, like Mr Shoebridge does often through this Committee.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 59).
Fang nails the problem here – Mark Latham should never have been permitted to prosecute the case for his own legislation as chair of the same Committee inquiring into it.
It was an inevitable conflict of interest, and just as inevitably led to serious shortcomings of the inquiry generally, and the hearings on April 20 and 21 in particular.
From a lack of trans witnesses, and only inviting faith bodies that supported the Bill to appear while ignoring those religious organisations that opposed it.
To criticising trans-supportive faith groups in their absence, implying they ‘lacked sanity’, and acting disrespectfully and unprofessionally to other witnesses.
Allowing completely irrelevant testimony, about trans inclusion in girl’s and women’s sports, and ‘bathroom panic’, which had exactly nothing to do with the legislation being considered.
And giving voice to transphobia, including providing a platform to witnesses who dismissed the gender identity of the majority of trans and nonbinary kids as not being real while simultaneously describing them as suffering ‘serious mental health issues’.
Before using the position of chair to give his own evidence, rather than impartially examining the evidence of witnesses.
If you were being charitable, you could describe these hearings, and the overall inquiry they were a part of, as a farce.
But, after reading through all of the testimony given over those two days, including the derogatory comments about some of the most vulnerable members of our community, I am not feeling especially charitable. So I will call it as it is:
This inquiry, and the fact Mark Latham has been allowed to serve as its chair, is a sick joke. And, if you can’t tell by now, I am not amused.
The other thing that is definitely not humorous? The fact the Coalition Government, and Labor Opposition, have allowed this embarrassing debasement of NSW Parliament to drag on for almost a full year.
This legislation seeks to erase trans and nonbinary kids in schools across NSW. It will cause harm to them, and to all LGBTI children and young people.
These things have been known since it was first introduced in August 2020 – and yet neither Gladys Berejiklian, nor Jodi McKay and now Chris Minns, have done the bare minimum: to speak out against it, and declare they will not support legislation that attacks kids.
What the fuck are they waiting for?
It’s beyond time for the major parties to finally reject Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, and Latham’s equally unbalanced and transphobic inquiry into it.
NSW Parliament can be, should be, better than this. Trans and nonbinary kids need it to be.
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.
Footnotes:
[i] Nor was Deves the only witness allowed to raise the irrelevant issue of trans inclusion in girl’s and women’s sports, with Terri Kelleher of the Australian Family Association making the following comments:
‘What right do they [girls in schools] have to fair sporting competitions? There is a worldwide movement at the moment speaking out for women’s and girl’s rights to their own sporting competitions on the ground that natal males have serious advantages over females.’ (Hearing Transcript, April 20, page 40).
[ii] Strangely enough, despite Kenny arguing that ‘genuinely transgender’ people are extremely rare, they are also capable of ‘destroying the fabric of the nuclear family’ (‘But to withdraw parental guidance and authority in the way that the transgender lobby has implemented with children declaring themselves to be transgender is really destroying the fabric of the nuclear family.’ Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 28), which indicates trans people must have super-powers.
[iii] John Steenhof of the Human Rights Law Alliance (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 36) and Mark Sneddon of the Institute for Civil Society (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 42).
[iv] Patrick Byrne of the National Civic Council, who suggested that transition – and not transphobia – was the cause of high rates of depression and suicide amongst transgender people: ‘Are you going to teach that there is a growing movement of de-transitioners and the risk if you go all the way down the road to full sex change surgery, a highly intrusive medical surgery, and then the longer-term risks from that. The best study on that was in Sweden, I think it was, the long-term effects of … transitioning, which had a suicide rate of 19 or 20 times the rest of the population.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 44), and Kirralie Smith of Binary Australia (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 9).
[v] Dianna Kenny of the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 29 and page 31).
[vi] Mary Hasson (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 3), and a favourite phrase of Dianna Kenny, who used it multiple times, including in this truly non-sensical quote revealing she apparently does not understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation:
‘Basically, what is happening is that children are being taught erroneous information and based on erroneous information these children are becoming extremely confused and as through a process of social contagion we are seeing very large increases in the number of children declaring themselves either non-binary, transgender, genderqueer, asexual, pansexual, omni-sexual, demi-boys and demi-girls.’ (Hearing Transcript, 21 April, page 25).
[vii] Another example occurred after a witness attempted to cite Latham’s Second Reading Speech for the Bill as ‘evidence’:
D’Adam: ‘Just to further elaborate, obviously we have all heard the second reading speech.’
Shoebridge: ‘It is not evidence.’
D’Adam: ‘That is not necessarily evidence of what is occurring. It is an assertion from a Member of Parliament.’
Latham: ‘Order! There is a professional development course. I will show you the course. We have got it on tape.
Shoebridge: ‘There is no order. It is not evidence.’ (Hearing Transcript, 20 April, page 37).
In 1996, Australians were watching Friends and listening to Alanis Morissette while the NSW Upper House was the site of a toxic debate about trans law reform.
In 2021, Australians are watching the Friends Reunion, can book tickets to Jagged Little Pill: The Musical and the NSW Legislative Council is once again hosting hostile discussion about the rights of its trans citizens.
It is perhaps disappointing to realise how little progress has been made in terms of pop culture and representations of transgender people – with the Friends Reunion refusing to address the recurring transphobic jokes made at the expense of Chandler’s parent, and Jagged Little Pill: The Musical erasing the gender identity of a fictional nonbinary character on its journey to Broadway.
For a start, much of the language in the two debates, a quarter of a century apart, is disturbingly similar, with both deliberate misgendering,[i] and scaremongering about trans women in sports, playing starring roles in each.
With more than a hint of hyperbole, Liberal MLC Marlene Goldsmith declared in 1996 ‘This legislation will mean the end of women’s sports as a concept, an entitlement and a right.’
In 2021, Katherine Deves, speaking on behalf of something called ‘Save Women’s Sport Australasia’, complained that ‘gender identity’ requires women and girls ‘to forego their right to compete on a level playing field in sport because fair competition is destroyed, athletic opportunities are lost and players’ safety is completely disregarded.’
Meanwhile, any small advances – multiple references to ‘tranys’ in the 1996 Hansard[ii] thankfully haven’t been repeated more recently – don’t begin to overcome larger retreats elsewhere.
In the intervening 25 years, opponents of legal equality for trans people have pivoted from expressing pity about their plight, while dismissing trans issues as unimportant,[iii] to portraying trans people as potential predators, and a fundamental threat to ‘Western civilisation’.
This dramatic escalation in rhetoric comes not just from the mover of the latter Bill (One Nation’s Mark Latham, who described trans-inclusive education as ‘part of the post-modernist attack on the nuclear family’ in his Second Reading Speech), but also from multiple witnesses who appeared at April’s hearings into his horrific law.
For example, Mark Sneddon of the Institute for Civil Society said (rather uncivilly, and somewhat ominously) in supporting the Bill: ‘What we are trying to do – or what I understand this Bill is trying to do – is to reduce the social contagion influence of putting more people onto the conveyor belt of gender transition.’
Even fear campaigns about women’s bathrooms have worsened, rather than improved, over the past quarter century.
The only reference to toilets I could find in the 1996 Legislative Council debate came from Fred Nile (yes, the same one still sitting in that chamber), who said: ‘Because I am obviously not a woman, I do not know [how] a woman would feel to have a transsexual who was born a male sitting beside her in a woman’s washroom or powder room in a factory, office or club.’
In 2021, this argument has been weaponised, much more explicitly utilising the language of ‘threat’, with Terri Kelleher of the Australian Family Association giving evidence that ‘Is it not discrimination against natal girls if natal male students who identify as female are allowed to use their toilets, change rooms and showers and share overnight school camp accommodation? What about their right to feel safe and to their privacy in spaces where they may be in a state of undress or asleep?’ and later ‘Now, that is not saying that all males or all boys who identify as girls are going to be a threat, but it sets up a situation where that can occur. That is very serious in the light of the child-on-child sexual abuse in schools.’
And, although most participants in the 1996 debate seemed to at least accept that transgender people are who they say they are, by 2021 a number of extremists appearing before Latham’s Committee were regularly making points about high rates of ‘de-transitioning’ and distinguishing between ‘genuine’ and ‘non-genuine’ trans people, before citing ‘social contagion’ and ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ (despite all four arguments being completely unsupported by any evidence whatsoever).
However, the toxic atmosphere surrounding Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill, and the fact contemporary discussion seems to be even worse than it was two and a half decades ago, is merely one small part of much larger frustrations about the situation we find ourselves in today.
At the very least, the 1996 debate was about legislation that would ultimately deliver multiple steps forward for trans rights in this state. Not only did the Transgender (Anti-Discrimination and Other Acts) Act insert transgender as a protected attribute in the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, it also saw NSW become the first jurisdiction in Australia to legally prohibit transphobic vilification (something that still hasn’t happened under Commonwealth law, nor in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory).
The same Act also amended the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 to allow transgender people who had undergone gender affirmation surgery to access identity documentation reflecting their gender identity.
These were genuinely historic reforms.
In contrast, the deceptively-named Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 seeks to completely erase real-life trans and nonbinary students from classrooms and schoolyards across NSW, censoring the curriculum and denying them affirmation and support from teachers, principals and even school counsellors.
Some people might be tempted to dismiss this threat given it is merely the product of fringe extremists in the NSW Upper House (one of the chamber’s perennial features). Except the positions of the major parties on this Bill are, so far, worse than when a generation of young people were mislearning the definition of ironic (myself included).
Back then, the Carr Labor Government relentlessly pursued their reforms to anti-discrimination and birth certificate laws. And, while the Collins Liberal/National Opposition ultimately voted against them (because of baseless concerns about the impact of birth certificate changes to women’s sport, including nonsensical statements about the Sydney Olympics), they at least expressed in-principle support for trans anti-discrimination protections.[iv]
In contrast, in the 10 months since Latham introduced his legislative assault on trans kids, neither the Berejiklian Liberal/National Government nor the McKay, and now Minns, Labor Opposition have publicly condemned it.
Indeed, they both voted in the Legislative Council for the Bill to be considered in more detail by a Committee chaired by Latham himself, while the Liberal Parliamentary Secretary for Education Kevin Conolly has expressed his personal support for it.
In failing to reject Latham’s transphobia, could the major parties be any more pathetic?
But the most frustrating part of all is that we need to expend significant time and energy working to defend existing rights, instead of campaigning for improvements to those same reforms passed in 1996.
Because those changes were far from perfect, even when they were first passed.
For example, the amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act inserted a definition of ‘recognised transgender person’, applying to people who have undergone gender affirmation surgery and had that recognised under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, even though it is irrelevant to determining whether anti-trans discrimination was prohibited under Part 3A (poor drafting which is still causing confusion in 2021, as demonstrated by transphobic discrimination by McIver’s Ladies Baths in Coogee earlier this year).
Unfortunately, neither the definition of ‘recognised transgender person’ nor Part 3A introduced protections against discrimination for trans and gender diverse people whose gender identity was nonbinary (instead only covering people who ‘identify as a member of the opposite sex’).[v]
The 1996 Anti-Discrimination Act reforms also permitted discrimination against trans students and teachers in publicly-funded ‘private educational authorities’, including (but not limited to) religious schools.[vi] Something that was difficult to justify 25 years ago, and is impossible to defend now.[vii]
Finally, in limiting access to updated birth certificates to people who have undergone gender affirmation surgery,[viii] the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act changes excluded the majority of trans and gender diverse people who are either unable to access such procedures (including for financial reasons) or who do not wish to. After all, trans people should be in control of their gender identity, not the(ir) doctor.
This weakness is not brand new information, either. The serious limitations of the birth certificate changes were raised by both Democrat[ix] and Greens MLCs[x] at the time.
Which means it is likely that at some point this term NSW will become the only jurisdiction in Australia which still requires trans people to undergo surgery to access a new birth certificate. Just in time to be subjected to (well-deserved) global scorn as Sydney hosts World Pride in February and March 2023.
Nevertheless, just as the Liberal, National and Labor Parties have refused to publicly reject Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill, none are currently promising to fix the problems in the Anti-Discrimination Act first introduced back in 1996, nor have any committed to finally bring the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act into the 21st century by allowing people to update their birth certificates without surgery or other physically invasive medical treatments.
This ongoing silence, on the fundamental human rights of the trans community, is simply not good enough. We really oughta know where the major parties stand on Latham’s anti-trans kids Bill, anti-discrimination reform and birth certificate requirements by now.
We must use whatever influence we have to demand more on these issues from our elected representatives. And by ‘we’ here I’m not talking about trans and gender diverse people, who are already fighting just for the ability to live their lives without discrimination, and to learn without erasure.
It’s time for cisgender members of the LGBT community, as well as our cis-het allies, to step up, and put pressure on Gladys Berejiklian and her Cabinet, and Chris Minns and his Shadow Ministers, to prioritise the dignity and equality of NSW’s trans and nonbinary citizens.
We must do so urgently, too. Because right now, trans and gender diverse people have very few friends in the NSW Legislative Council, and NSW Parliament more broadly.
While there remains a real chance their legal rights will go backwards, rather than forwards, in the near future. Which would be a very jagged little pill to swallow.
I am writing to urge you to publicly oppose the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, legislation which would erase trans and nonbinary students from classrooms and schoolyards across NSW, as well as censor the curriculum and deny them access to affirmation and support from teachers, principals and even school counsellors.
This Bill is the worst legislative attack on LGBTI rights anywhere in Australia this century. It is simply not good enough that, more than 10 months after it was introduced, the people of NSW still don’t know whether you and your Party condemn or condone the harm it will inevitably cause.
Nor is it good enough that trans and gender diverse people in NSW are forced to live with second-rate anti-discrimination and identity documentation laws.
Therefore, I also urge you to publicly commit to amend the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 to:
Remove the unnecessary and confusing definition of ‘recognised transgender person’,
Replace the protected attribute of ‘transgender’ with an attribute of ‘gender identity’ and a definition which ensures nonbinary people are protected against discrimination, and
Remove the special privileges which allow publicly-funded ‘private educational authorities’, including religious schools, to discriminate against trans and gender diverse students and teachers simply because of who they are.
Finally, I urge you to amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 to allow trans and gender diverse people to self-determine their gender identity without the need for physically invasive medical treatment, such as surgery, as well as to recognise a wider range of gender identities, including nonbinary.
If the NSW Parliament fails to amend these laws, it is highly likely we will soon be the only jurisdiction in Australia which places this unfair and unnecessary barrier in front of its trans and gender diverse citizens. These hurdles must be removed as a matter of priority.
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Footnotes:
[i] In the 1996 debate, trans women were erroneously described by opponents as ‘transsexual males’, while in the 2021 hearings trans girls were commonly called ‘biological males’ or ‘natal males’. Mark Latham also deliberately used the deadname of a prominent transgender Australian on 20 April.
[ii] The term ‘tranys’ was used by both supporters and opponents of the 1996 legislation, perhaps indicating that this language did not carry the same pejorative connotations it does today. Either way, it was confronting seeing the frequency with which the term was used back then.
[iii] National Party MLC Duncan Gay opposed the 1996 reforms, stating: ‘I am going to be brief in my opposition to this bill. I am amazed about the amount of time spent by honourable members on what I believe is the most stupid and most unnecessary bill to ever come before this Parliament.’
[iv] With Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, John Hannaford, stating: ‘I accept the need to deal with discrimination against members of the transgender community. I acknowledge that violence is committed against such members of the community and also that those members suffer discrimination. It is necessary to address such elements of violence and discrimination.’
[v] Unfortunately, this problem – only protecting trans people with binary gender identities – is shared by the anti-discrimination laws of Queensland, Western Australian and the Northern Territory. For more, see: A Quick Guide to Australian LGBTI Anti-Discrimination Laws.
[vii] Disturbingly, these represent only the most prominent of the problems with trans protections in the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. One of the provisions inserted in 1996 provided an exception allowing discrimination by superannuation funds:
‘Section 38Q: A person does not discriminate against a transgender person (whether or not a recognised transgender person) on transgender grounds if, in the administration of a superannuation or provident fund or scheme, the other person treats the transgender person as being of the opposite sex to the sex with which the transgender person identifies.’
Interestingly, the then Attorney General, Jeff Shaw, made the following comment about this provision in his Second Reading Speech:
‘Granting legal recognition also has implications for the superannuation sector in terms of differential contributions and benefits. These implications have not yet been fully determined. The legislation therefore provides for an exemption to legal recognition in this area. Nevertheless, I wish to advise the House that the Government is currently examining this matter with a view to possible further amendments at a later date.’
Except, as you’ve probably guessed by now, those changes never happened – and this exception remains, with the exact same wording, today.
[viii] Interestingly, the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 provisions were amended in 2008, to replace the original terminology of ‘sexual reassignment surgery’ with ‘sexual affirmation procedure’, but the requirement for surgery was not altered.
[ix] Democrat MLC Elisabeth Kirby stated: ‘Although I support the Government’s amendments to the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act, I request that the Government give serious future consideration to an expansion of the criteria under which a new birth certificate can be obtained’ before highlighting that only a minority of transgender people undergo surgery.
[x] Greens MLC Ian Cohen also expressed his ‘reservations’ about ‘the certificate provisions not including transgender members of our community who, for whatever reasons, decline surgical intervention’ and later that ‘By using medical interventions as the benchmark for altering documents of identity, the legislation leaves out in the cold 80 per cent of the transgender members of our community who do not avail themselves of medical interventions.’ Perhaps with misplaced confidence he subsequently noted that ‘I am certain that with the passage of time this flaw will be recognised and rectified.’ Well, we’re now at 25 years and counting…
Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment
Submitted online via aph.gov.au
19 March 2021
To the Committee
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission regarding the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020.
I do so as a long-standing advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, and as a gay man who (barely) survived five years at a homophobic religious boarding school in Queensland in the early 1990s[i]and who hopes to help protect trans and gender diverse students from experiencing similar discrimination today.
Contrary to its name, this legislation is not about prohibiting the indoctrination of children, but instead appears to be motivated by prejudice against the gender identity and/or gender expression of trans and non-binary young people.
It is not about providing balance, but is instead aimed at banning the information these children need to grow up feeling safe and supported, and reach their full potential.
And it is not about ensuring all students enjoy an inclusive education, but instead seeks to erase trans and gender diverse kids. From the curriculum, and from the classroom.
These disturbing truths are revealed by Senator Hanson’s Second Reading Speech, where she spends almost half of its word count arguing against ‘gender theory indoctrination in schools’, which she claims ‘involves some teachers and schools pushing the idea that a child’s biological sex does not determine where you are male or female.’
Not only does Senator Hanson fail to understand the difference between sex assigned at birth and gender identity – and the existence of hundreds of thousands of trans and gender diverse Australians demonstrate that these two can and frequently do diverge.
But she also seems to believe that banning curriculum materials which mention said reality of gender diversity will somehow prevent children from becoming trans or non-binary in the first place (from the Second Reading Speech: ‘The preoccupation with gender identity by some teachers and schools is correlated with an increase in children identifying as transgender, which is why I say these educators are transgendering our children’).
I know from bitter personal experience that the consequence of a homophobic education, where the curriculum did not even acknowledge the existence of same-sex attraction let alone affirm that it was a valid sexual orientation, did not make me any less gay, but it did nearly cost me my life.
The same will inevitably be true for trans and gender diverse students should this legislation pass. The choice is not between whether a child is trans or non-binary on one hand, or cisgender on the other. The choice is between whether a trans or non-binary child is happy and healthy, or depressed and at significant risk of self-harm.
On this most basic of outcomes, our schools are currently failing. Badly. The recent findings of the Writing Themselves In 4[ii]survey indicate that, far from schools being overwhelmingly supportive environments where being trans and gender diverse is encouraged, in many, indeed most, there is either silence or active hostility.
From that report:
One-half (51.2%; n=1,953) of secondary school participants reported that trans and gender diverse people were never mentioned in a supportive or inclusive way;[iii]
Almost three-quarters of trans men (74.3%; n=278) and two-thirds of trans women (67.7%; n=46) and non-binary participants (65.8%; n=746) said that in the past 12 months they had felt unsafe or uncomfortable at their educational institution due to their sexuality or gender identity;[iv]
Only 41.0% (n=378) of trans and gender diverse participants in secondary schools reported being able to safely use their chosen name or pronouns in the past 12 months, while only 50.9% (n=469) were able to wear clothes that matched their gender identity;[v] and
Over seven-tenths (70.2%; n=2,579) of secondary school participants… reported hearing negative language about gender identity or gender expression sometimes or frequently in the past 12 months.[vi]
Many trans and gender diverse students are not thriving in these toxic environments. Nor are they being ‘created’ by overly-supportive schools and teachers. They are merely doing their best to survive despite the transphobia which far too often surrounds them.
There is one point on which I agree with Senator Hanson. In her Second Reading Speech, she declares that ‘Our children deserve an education that will allow them to reach their potential.’ Unlike Senator Hanson, however, I believe that this statement should apply to all students, and not just those who are cisgender.
Trans and non-binary children have the same right to learn, and grow, as any other child. As every other child. Our schools should be doing more to support them, not less. That includes increasing their visibility in the curriculum, rather than having all references to gender diversity erased because of discriminatory legislation proposed by an extremist Senator.
I call on the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment, and the Parliament more broadly, to reject this attack on some of Australia’s most vulnerable.
Recommendation: That the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020 be rejected in its entirety.
Before I conclude this submission, I would like to raise two additional arguments, both of which militate for rejection of this legislation.
First, the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020 needs to be seen in its wider context. In my view, it is merely one small part of a larger, dangerous and divisive culture war being waged right now against trans and gender diverse Australians.
The proponents of this culture war include organisations that were opposed to the right of all couples to marry irrespective of their sexual orientations, gender identities and/or sex characteristics. Having lost that fight, including through the 2017 same-sex marriage postal survey, they appear to have turned their attention to denying the fundamental rights of trans and gender diverse Australians, and especially trans and non-binary young people.
These organisations have found supporters in columnists, and media publications, that seem happy to publish attacks on the ability of trans kids just to be themselves.
Unfortunately, these organisations also appear to have found supporters in the Senate itself, with the passage of Senator Roberts’ motion number 1055, on Wednesday 17 March 2021. As well as seeking to reinforce the use of binary-only gender descriptors, it included the following concerning clauses (among others):
‘That the Senate notes that:
ii. broad scale genuine inclusion cannot be achieved through distortions of biological and relational descriptors,
iii. an individual’s right to choose their descriptors and pronouns for personal use must not dehumanise the human race and undermine gender.’
In response, I would submit that denying the existence of trans and non-binary people is a far greater threat to ‘broad scale genuine inclusion’. More importantly, a trans or non-binary person affirming their gender descriptors and pronouns does not pose any threat to any person who is prepared to accept and respect other people for who they are.
Nor does the use of diverse gender descriptors and/or pronouns ‘dehumanise the human race’ in any way. Indeed, I would encourage Senators who voted in support of that motion to reflect on exactly who was being dehumanised by its contents.
The anti-trans agenda has found even greater support among state and territory parliaments, including in my jurisdiction of NSW. The state leader of Senator Hanson’s Party has introduced his own legislation seeking to make life much more difficult for LGBTI students, and for trans and non-binary students in particular.
As I have written elsewhere,[vii] the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 is:
‘A Bill that seeks to prohibit any and all teaching that someone’s gender identity can be different to the gender assigned to them at birth.
That weaponises the so-called morality of transphobes to deny the reality of trans people.
A Bill that actually goes much, much further, by banning any ‘teaching, instruction, counselling and advice’ that acknowledges said lived reality, by anybody remotely connected to a school, from principals to parents volunteering in the school canteen.
That compels a school counsellor to remain silent when a suicidal trans student just needs to hear the most basic words of comfort: that they are not alone, and who they are is okay.
A Bill that recycles failed and flawed policies from Thatcher-era Britain, reviving ‘section 28’-style laws which saw a generation of lesbian, gay and bisexual students marginalised and made invisible, without access to safe sex education even at the height of the HIV epidemic.
Policies that were abandoned in the UK almost two decades ago, now being contemplated for LGBT students right here in 2021.
A Bill that seeks to insert an ignorant, inappropriate and incorrect definition of intersex in NSW law for the first time, further stigmatising individuals that still endure the most significant human rights abuses of any group within the LGBTI community.’
While discussing the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, I should note that were both it and Senator Hanson’s own Bill to pass their respective Parliaments, it is highly likely the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020 would result in the defunding of NSW public schools.
That is because of the operation of proposed section 22AA of the Australian Education Act 2013 (Cth), and especially sub-section (1)(b):
‘A payment of financial assistance under this Act to a State or Territory is subject to the condition that the State or Territory has in force laws that…
require a staff member (however described) of a school to provide students with a balanced presentation of opposing views on political, historical and scientific issues as such issues arise in the teaching of a subject.’
Given the NSW Bill expressly prohibits the teaching of particular views, including in relation to the scientific diversity of gender identity, it cannot possibly be described as balanced according to that word’s ordinary meaning.
Putting that particular issue to one side, I raise the broader context of the Bill currently before the Committee because it will have consequences outside of its own flawed provisions.
If the Committee, and Parliament, choose to support the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020, it will only embolden the proponents of the culture war against trans and non-binary kids.
On the other hand, the Committee, and Parliament, have the opportunity through this inquiry and subsequent legislative debate to send a strong signal that trans and gender diverse Australians have the right to be themselves, and above all that trans and non-binary children will be protected against further attacks.
The second and final additional argument I would like to raise relates to the impracticability of the Bill itself. Specifically, proposed section (7) of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Act 2008 (Act), provides that:
‘The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority must ensure that:
(a) the national school curriculum is developed and administered to provide a balanced presentation of opposing views on political, historical and scientific issues; and
(b) information, resources, support and guidance that promote a balanced presentation of opposing views on political, historical and scientific issues are provided to the teaching profession.’
However, the Bill does not define what is meant by the term ‘balance’. The Explanatory Memorandum fails to provide further clarification, simply noting this provision requires ACARA ‘to promote a balanced presentation of opposing views where they exist’ (emphasis added).
Which leaves us with Senator Hanson’s Second Reading Speech to assist with legislative interpretation. In the context of her views on, or rather against, climate change science –which dominates the other half of her statement – the notion of ‘balance’ becomes problematic.
It appears Senator Hanson would like to provide an equal platform in the science curriculum to climate change denialism alongside evidence-based climate science which irrefutably shows the earth is heating, and that this heating is caused by human activity.
To do what Senator Hanson proposes – to provide space in the science curriculum just because some people believe it, rather than because it is based on evidence – would undermine the very nature of science itself.
Nevertheless, it is the application of the Bill’s vague notions of ‘balance’ to the subject of history that reveals just how unworkable this legislation is.
To raise just one example, how would this legislation affect the history curriculum around World War II, and specifically the Holocaust? Abhorrent though their views are, some people continue to espouse Holocaust denialist arguments. To apply the language used in the Explanatory Memorandum, they are ‘opposing views (about history) where they exist’.
It is therefore at least possible that, if passed, the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020 would mandate ACARA to include Holocaust denialism as part of the Australian history curriculum.
Such an outcome is obviously unacceptable. It reflects a Bill that is an unworkable mess, and one that would create a mess of Australia’s curriculum, not just in history, but in politics, science and elsewhere too.
In my view, this impracticability is the inevitable outcome of a Senator trying to impose their ideological obsessions – in this case, climate change denialism, and the erasure of trans and non-binary kids – through the national education system.
I would much prefer our school curriculum to be drafted by experts who understand their subject matter, as well as the learning and developmental needs of children – all children – rather than a Senator who does not seem to even understand her own legislation.
I sincerely hope the majority of the Committee, and the Parliament, share that preference.
Thank you for considering this submission as part of the inquiry into the Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020. Please do not hesitate to contact me, at the details provided, should the Committee require additional information.
Sincerely
Alastair Lawrie
Pauline Hanson has joined her NSW state leader Mark Latham in introducing legislation attacking trans and non-binary kids. Just like his Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, her Australian Education Legislation Amendment (Prohibiting the Indoctrination of Children) Bill 2020 must be rejected.
Last weekend was the first Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and/or Party I have missed since 2003. Although I think I had a pretty good reason not to be there – I was attending my grandma’s 100th birthday party in Rockhampton, Queensland (near where I grew up).
Nevertheless, the day before Mardi Gras I received a letter reminding me of just how far there is left to go before we achieve genuine, substantive equality for LGBTI Australians, and especially for trans and gender diverse children and young people.
But, first, some context. In August last year, NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham introduced the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. As I wrote at the time, this proposed law is the worst attack on LGBTI rights in this country this century.
If passed, the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 would:
Prohibit any ‘teaching, instruction, counselling and advice’ that gender identity can be different to sex assigned at birth, effectively erasing and invisibilising trans and gender diverse students in schools across NSW
Introducing a UK section 28-style clause making it difficult for teachers, principals and counsellors to support lesbian, gay and bisexual students, and
Enacting an inaccurate and offensive definition of intersex in NSW law for the first time.
The NSW Legislative Council Education Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into this Bill. Unfortunately, the Chair of that inquiry is… Mark Latham. In which case, I decided to bypass the Committee and instead write directly to the majority of MPs calling on them to be champions for trans and gender diverse kids, rather than their bullies.
I have received a small number of responses to date, but the most significant so far arrived in my inbox last Friday, March 5 2021. It came from the Member for Riverstone, Mr Kevin Conolly – who, incidentally, is also the NSW Government Parliamentary Secretary for Education (and therefore a direct adviser to and influencer of the Minister for Education, the Hon Sarah Mitchell). Here is what he wrote:
Dear Mr Lawrie,
Thank you for contacting me to express your view about the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020.
You appear to have misunderstood the intent and effect of the Bill on a number of levels.
The first thing to state about the Bill is that it gives effect to internationally recognised human rights explicitly stated in international agreements to which Australia (like nearly all nations) is a signatory:
Article 18, part 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:
‘The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.’
Article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
‘Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents or, where applicable, the members of the extended family or community as provided for by local custom, legal guardians or other persons legally responsible for the child, to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognised in the present Convention.’
Article 26(3) of Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
‘Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.’
I do not agree that the Bill is based on a sick ideology, as you assert. It is based, in my view, on the common sense proposition that it is parents who are best placed and most likely to focus on the best interests of their child, rather than teacher unions, academics or activists with their own political agenda.
In prohibiting the teaching of ‘gender fluidity’ the Bill would preclude the teaching of the false and unscientific proposition that gender is something other than biologically determined.
To state this does not in any way suggest that it is better for young people experiencing gender dysphoria to ‘not exist at all’. I’m sure that Hon. Mark Latham would wholeheartedly agree with you that young people in this situation should be ‘happy and healthy, … safe and supported.’ This is far more likely to be the case if they are in the care of their parents and avoid premature chemical or surgical interventions while they grow and mature.
It is a fact that the great majority of cases of young people with gender dysphoria are resolved in time without any such interventions if children and adolescents are supported by loving families and allowed to make their own decisions when older. Most are resolved with the person coming to terms with their biological gender.
I note that you have mentioned ‘LGBTI’ a number of times in your email. However the Bill has no impact whatsoever on questions of homosexuality, only on the specific issue of so-called ‘gender fluidity’.
In my view, quite contrary to your assertion, the Bill would facilitate a school counsellor or teacher to help a child or young person by allowing counselling to consider all the future options available to the person rather than requiring only one predetermined option (i.e. ‘transition’) to be discussed.
The Bill is a positive step forward because it provides the opportunity for parents to provide genuine selfless care to young people rather than leave them at the mercy of activists whose ‘care’ is far more for their ideological cause than it is for the young person facing difficult challenges. In doing so it upholds universally recognised basic human rights, and responsibilities of parents towards their children.
Yours sincerely
Kevin Conolly MP
Member for Riverstone
*****
There is obviously a lot to unpack here. First of all, it is clear that Mr Conolly is selectively quoting from some international human rights instruments, while ignoring other key principles. This includes Article 26 of the ICCPR, which states:
‘All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or other status.’
There is no doubt that a Bill which seeks to erase trans and gender diverse students, make life much more difficult for LG&B kids, and stigmatise intersex children, is discriminatory against LGBTI people.
Indeed, as others have written, it is likely that the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 will ultimately be found to be unlawful because it contravenes the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).
But misinterpreting international human rights law is the least of the problems in Mr Conolly’s correspondence.
He also doesn’t seem to understand the Bill itself. The Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 establishes strict limits on any teaching or counselling of anything to do with what it describes as ‘matters of parental primacy’ – which is defined very broadly to explicitly include ‘matters of personal wellbeing and identity including gender and sexuality’.
Therefore, his protestation that ‘the Bill has no impact whatsoever on questions of homosexuality’ is not only patently false, but makes me question whether he has even read the legislation he is so ardently defending.
On that note, I find it incredibly curious that a member of the NSW Government – and a Parliamentary Secretary at that – is not only publicly supporting One Nation legislation (‘The Bill is a positive step forward…’), but also defending and apparently speaking on behalf of the NSW One Nation Leader (‘I’m sure that Hon. Mark Latham would…’).
But, of course, the worst aspects of Mr Conolly’s letter relate to his views about gender identity.
On this topic, he appears to assert that there is actually no such thing as trans and gender diverse people (‘In prohibiting the teaching of ‘gender fluidity’ the Bill would preclude the teaching of the false and unscientific proposition that gender is something other than biologically determined’). I’m sure that revelation would be surprising to trans and gender diverse people across NSW.
Nevertheless, the most offensive aspect of Mr Conolly’s correspondence arrives near its conclusion, where he argues ‘the Bill would facilitate a school counsellor or teacher to help a child or young person by allowing counselling to consider all the future options available to the person rather than requiring only one predetermined option (i.e. ‘transition’) to be discussed’.
Except that, given those same counsellors and teachers will be explicitly prohibited from even mentioning that gender identity can be different to sex assigned at birth, the only option they will be permitted to present to struggling children is that they simply not be trans or gender diverse.
It is at least arguable that what Mr Conolly is calling for is for counsellors and teachers to provide anti-trans conversion practices in every school across NSW.
It is extraordinary this letter was written by a member of the NSW Liberal/National Government. It is deeply troubling that it was done so by the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, commenting on and explicitly supporting legislation within his portfolio.
This stands in marked contrast to the failure of the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, Deputy Premier, John Barilaro, and Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, to take any position on the Bill whatsoever. Indeed, they collectively delegated their reply to my letter to a bureaucrat in the Department of Education, who wrote:
‘The NSW Government will respond to the proposed bill after careful consideration to ensure all relevant legislation and protections are considered.’
Now that the Parliamentary Secretary for Education has declared his personal support for the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, I believe this studious refusal to adopt a position is no longer tenable. At a certain point, being non-committal ends up being complicit.
The failure of the NSW Premier to oppose Mark Latham’s awful legislative assault on trans and gender diverse kids is particularly untenable given another development last weekend: Ms Berejiklian’s attendance at the SCG for the Mardi Gras Parade (as tweeted by Commonwealth Liberal MP, Dave Sharma – pictured below).
In my view, if you are prepared to come and celebrate diversity with us – diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics – then you must be prepared to defend that diversity.
Against attacks by fringe extremist parties in the NSW Legislative Council.
And against support for those attacks by prominent members of your very own Government.
As I wrote previously, ‘It is time for [NSW Parliamentarians] to make your decision about the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. Champion. Or bully. The choice is yours.’
Right now, that choice belongs to the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
Berejiklian must understand the extremely serious consequences if she makes the wrong decision. Because instead of being able to celebrate their own 100th birthdays early in the 22nd century, some trans and gender diverse students in NSW schools will struggle to reach their 18th.
*****
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.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, you can sign up to receive updates about this and other issues from this blog, via the right-hand scroll bar on desktop, or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus [NB Given the events of the past month – with this website being blocked by Facebook for being ‘news’ – it is more important than ever to sign up if you want to receive updates, especially with the possibility of further disruptions].
This Valentine’s Day, I have written the below letter to NSW Parliamentarians, asking them to show love for trans and gender diverse kids by unequivocally opposing Mark Latham’s proposed legislation which seeks to deny their existence. Please read through to the end of the article to find out what you can do to help fight back against his bullying.
14 February 2021
Dear NSW MPs
I am writing to urge you to immediately and publicly express your opposition to the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020.
This legislation makes me sick.
This legislation is sick.
This legislation is based on a sick ideology that it is better for trans and gender diverse kids not to exist at all, than for them to be happy and healthy, and to feel safe and supported in NSW schools.
I, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in this state, are sick and tired of wasting precious time and energy fighting against such ill-intentioned attacks on our community.
Especially when there is still so much progress left to achieve, including on legal rights for trans and gender diverse people, like providing access to birth certificates without the need for surgery or other invasive medical procedures, or ensuring the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 covers non-binary people (something it currently does not).
Instead, the NSW Legislative Council’s Education Committee is holding an inquiry into a Bill which is nothing short of the worst legislative attack on LGBTI rights in Australia this century.
A Bill that seeks to prohibit any and all teaching that someone’s gender identity can be different to the gender assigned to them at birth.
That weaponises the so-called morality of transphobes to deny the reality of trans people.
A Bill that actually goes much, much further, by banning any ‘teaching, instruction, counselling and advice’ that acknowledges said lived reality, by anybody remotely connected to a school, from principals to parents volunteering in the school canteen.
That compels a school counsellor to remain silent when a suicidal trans student just needs to hear the most basic words of comfort: that they are not alone, and who they are is okay.
A Bill that recycles failed and flawed policies from Thatcher-era Britain, reviving ‘section 28’-style laws which saw a generation of lesbian, gay and bisexual students marginalised and made invisible, without access to safe sex education even at the height of the HIV epidemic.
Policies that were abandoned in the UK almost two decades ago, now being contemplated for LGBT students right here in 2021.
A Bill that seeks to insert an ignorant, inappropriate and incorrect definition of intersex in NSW law for the first time, further stigmatising individuals that still endure the most significant human rights abuses of any group within the LGBTI community.
It does all of this based on misguided claims that the rights of parents are somehow more important than those of their children. Perhaps the best that could be said regarding this stated motivation is that at least they are being transparent.
For decades, opponents of LGBTI rights have argued that we are a serious threat to the rights of children to be themselves. Demands for our equality have frequently been met with the pleas of excitable Helen Lovejoy-types exclaiming ‘won’t somebody please think of the children’.
Well, this legislation pulls back the curtain to reveal where the real danger lies, and it’s not us. The threat to LGBTI kids comes from parents who would prefer their own children not to exist than to be who they are, and from the politicians who wish to empower them.
This legislation is an admission that, if the criteria for assessing policy proposals is whether it is in the best interests of children, then the homophobes, biphobes and transphobes have lost. Because decades of evidence clearly shows the best response to LGBT kids is to offer them love not judgement, support not suppression.
Instead, anti-LGBTI activists have moved the goalposts, so that the rights of children are no longer supreme, but must be made secondary to the perspectives of parents. But even then only the views of some parents are considered paramount.
This legislation, if passed, would mean not only that transphobic parents succeed in ensuring their own children are not taught about gender identity issues, but that no child is, in any class, anywhere. That includes the trans and gender diverse kids of parents who accept them (as any parent should).
Education is, or at least should be, for all, not just for students who are cisgender, heterosexual and endosex. Schools must not be compelled to be participants in and proponents for the prejudices of some parents.
Teachers must be allowed to teach the truth. The undeniable truth is that trans people exist. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as well. Intersex people, too.
These truths might be inconvenient for those who would prefer otherwise. But that is not a good enough reason to pass a law to impose silence where our stories should be.
The Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 was released more than six months ago. Its discriminatory pillars have been public knowledge for just as long.
Which makes it deeply disappointing, distressing even, that neither the NSW Government nor Opposition have clearly committed to voting against it in the time since then.
Recent events in the United States have served as a stark warning of the profound consequences of playing footsie with fascism.
NSW Parliamentarians should not encourage extremism, by entertaining the exclusion of an entire category of person from education. Make no mistake, that is exactly what this Bill does: it enables the erasure of trans and gender diverse students in every classroom and schoolyard across the state.
I understand that, regrettably, One Nation holds part of the balance of power in the Legislative Council this term. But it is a craven political calculation which concludes two Upper House votes are worth more than the happiness, the childhoods and in some cases even the lives of some of the community’s most vulnerable members.
Surely it is time for you to find your voice and say, finally, you cannot in good conscience stay silent on a proposal that silences trans kids. That you will oppose this harmful and hateful legislation in committee, in debate and whenever it comes up for a vote.
If you are not convinced by the above arguments, then I implore you to do one simple thing: put yourself in the position of a trans child following the potential passage of this Bill.
Imagine realising that, at a fundamental level, you are not like most of the other boys, or girls. You may not have the language yet, yet you know you are different.
But the words you need to express yourself aren’t able to be uttered in the place the Government compels you to attend most days of the first 18 years of your life. A place where you’re supposed to feel safe, but instead are sidelined.
There is nothing in the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education curriculum to say other people like you even exist. They have been excised from the textbooks, just as they’ve been excluded from English, History and other subjects too.
You cannot find any information about who you are in the school library because any books that mention gender diversity have been purged.
You cannot see yourself in any of the trans or gender diverse teachers who might be there either, because they are busy hiding themselves lest they be accused of ‘indoctrination’.
Imagine overcoming these barriers, and, with the support of your family, beginning to affirm who you really are. And then your problems really begin.
Your teacher cannot actively support your transition because to do so could be interpreted as ‘instruction’ to the rest of your class that trans people do, in fact, exist.
They also can’t intervene to stop you from being misgendered and deadnamed by other kids. To some extent, such bullying is inevitable because they’ve never been taught anything about people like you and ‘different’ too-easily, and too-rapidly, becomes ‘wrong’.
You cannot seek advice from the school counsellor, because the moment you start to say anything about gender identity they are forced to shut the conversation down. They’re not even allowed to refer you to the wonderful support service they’re aware of just down the road, but may as well be in a different universe.
And you cannot seek protection from the school principal because of the attitudes of parents and politicians who have never met you, but who hate who you are anyway.
Imagine how you might feel in this situation. How scared. And small. And alone. Even with the backing of a supportive family, it would be difficult. Without it, it would be almost impossible.
I don’t need to imagine very hard. Because there is a lot of similarity in what I described above to the circumstances I confronted as a gay student at a religious boarding school in Brisbane in the early 1990s.
And, if we’re being completely honest, there are still far too many same-sex attracted kids who find themselves in the same scenario in schools all over NSW today.
But it absolutely destroys my heart to think that, even today, NSW Parliament is holding an inquiry into a Bill that would guarantee this mistreatment for trans and gender diverse kids into the future, with the long-term psychological harm that all-too-often goes with it.
It doesn’t need to be this way.
I started this letter by talking about the sickness that lies at the centre of the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, and the dangerous views that it espouses. But those views should not be the centre of this debate.
Instead, this discussion is about how we treat people who are not sick, but who are actually beautiful: trans and gender diverse kids.
Kids who deserve the same love, and care, and nurturing, as anybody else. Kids who have the same right to education as anybody else. Kids who should have the same ability to determine for themselves who they are, as anybody else.
As an elected representative in the NSW Parliament, you can be their champion. As part of the debate surrounding this Bill you can stand up and say that trans kids are welcomed and accepted, while transphobia is not.
You can let the people of NSW know, right now, that you will not let this legislation, or any subsequent legislative attacks on trans kids, pass.
Of course, you do have another option. Alternatively, you could choose to progress with consideration of this Bill, through the committee inquiry, and then onto the floor of Parliament for debate. You might even ultimately decide to vote for it.
If you do, then instead of being a champion for trans and gender diverse kids, you would be joining their bullies. And responsibility for the harms caused would be yours to own.
It’s time for you to make your decision about the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. Champion. Or bully. The choice is yours.
Sincerely,
Alastair Lawrie
Things you can do:
The NSW Legislative Council Education Committee (chaired by Mark Latham himself) is conducting an online questionnaire about community views towards the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020, closing on Sunday 28 February 2021.
Unfortunately, many of the questions asked are (mis)leading. Nevertheless, organisations like the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and Equality Australia recommend completing the survey in the following way:
Fill in your details in response to the first question
At question 2 click ‘oppose’
Skip through the other questions
At question 8 share a story of a teacher who made an impact on your life
Identify yourself only to the extent you feel comfortable.
If you feel comfortable, you should also raise this issue directly with your local member of parliament (you can find a list of MPs here) and let them know you expect them to stand up for the right of everyone to an education, and that includes trans and gender diverse kids.
Finally, you can sign up to receive updates about this and other issues from this blog, via the right-hand scroll bar on desktop, or near the bottom of the page on mobile. You can also follow me on twitter @alawriedejesus [NB Given the events of the past week – with this website being blocked by Facebook for being ‘news’ – it is more important than ever to sign up if you want to receive updates, especially with the possibility of further disruptions].
*****
Update 28 February 2021
I received the following correspondence on Thursday:
Dear Mr Lawrie
I write in response to your email of 14 and 15 February 2021, to the Hon Gladys Berejiklian MP, Premier and the Hon John Barilaro MP, Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade, and Hon Sarah Mitchell MLC, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning regarding the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. The Premier and Deputy Premier referred your correspondence to the Hon Sarah Mitchell MLC, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning. The Minister has asked me to respond on her behalf.
The NSW Government will respond to the proposed bill after careful consideration to ensure all relevant legislation and protections are considered.
The Department of Education is committed to providing safe and supportive learning environments that respect and value diversity and are free from violence, discrimination, harassment and vilification. NSW public schools have legal obligations to protect and support their students.
We thank you for taking the time to express your concerns over the proposed bill. The NSW Government is working through the formal parliamentary process to address the matter and will communicate this once the process is finalised.
Should you require any further information you are welcome to contact [name and contact details omitted].
Yours sincerely
[Name omitted]
A/Director, Curriculum Secondary Learners
25 February 2021
Upon receiving this correspondence, I had three main thoughts:
First, it is disappointing that none of the Premier, Deputy Premier or even the Minister for Education responded directly to my original letter, instead delegating it to the Department of Education.
Second, it is frankly pathetic for the NSW Government to hide behind the committee inquiry process, as if this is an ordinary bill. It is not. It is an extreme proposal that seeks to erase an entire group of students from schools across the state. How much worse must a law be before NSW’s leaders show some leadership and declare that this type of legislation will not be tolerated, let alone considered?
Third, it reinforces the need for everyone who believes in an inclusive education, where all students have the right to learn irrespective of their sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics, to make their voices heard. If you are reading this on Sunday 28 February 2021, please, please, please complete the parliamentary survey expressing your opposition to this Bill in question 2.
alastairlawrie 