New ‘transgender law’ to make it legal for people to change the gender on their birth certificates without undergoing sex-change surgery
- Victoria on the verge of changing law to allow gender change without surgery
- Attorney-General Jill Hennessy introduced government bill in June to this effect
- It is being debated in Parliament this week, with Greens, Animal Justice support
- Animal Justice MP, who has transgender son, said change not about symbolism
Victoria appears on the verge of changing the law so transgender people can change their birth certificate without undergoing sex-change surgery.
The state’s Attorney-General Jill Hennessy introduced the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment Bill in June seeking to make the law ‘compatible with human rights’.
The Victorian Parliament is debating that bill this week – four months after Tasmania’s upper house voted to make gender optional on birth certificates and allow someone to change their gender by signing a statutory declaration.
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Victoria appears on the verge of changing the law so transgender people can change their birth certificate without undergoing sex change surgery (pictured are members of the Tiwi Island transgender community at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras)
The Opposition is set to vote against the legislation but the Labor government’s bill is likely to pass through the Legislative Council with the support of the Greens and other left-leaning minor parties.
Animal Justice Party upper house MP Andy Meddick, who has a 20-year-old transgender son Eden, rejected a suggestion from Melbourne 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell the change would symbolic.
‘No, it’s not symbolic. For people who are transgender this means everything in the world to them,’ he said.
Mr Meddick, whose transgender son revealed his gender dysphoria at age 14, said a birth certificate was more than a piece of paper.
Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick, who has a 20-year-old transgender son Eden, rejected a suggestion from Melbourne 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell the change would symbolic
‘For them, when they go to get a drivers licence, the driver’s licence doesn’t reflect who they are. When they go to get a passport, it doesn’t reflect who they are,’ he said.
‘They feel isolated, they feel separated from the rest of the world.
‘This is another way, it makes us more inclusive as a society that we recognise that these people are who they are and they’re part of us and we love them and we support them.’
Should the Victorian bill become law, New South Wales and Queensland would be the only states where someone needed to undergo sex change surgery to change their birth certificate.