Understanding the Proposed Changes to the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act:
 

SUMMARY AND EXPLANATION:

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1. Easy process to Change Legal Sex:

Individuals over 18 can change their legal sex by submitting a statutory declaration from someone who has known them for at least 12 months. This marks a significant shift from the existing, more rigorous process, which included medical and psychological evaluations to legally affirm that one's subjective feeling of their gender or sex does not match their biological sex.
 

2. Removal of Safeguards for Minors

Minors under 18 can initiate a legal sex change with minimal oversight, which could bypass parental consent and not require any medical evidence. This raises significant ethical and social questions about the autonomy of minors and the role of parents in such life-altering decisions particularly if they involve serious medical interventions. 

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3. No Limitation on Frequency of Changes:
An individual's ability to change their legal sex descriptor an unlimited number of times, will impact the seriousness and reliability of legal identity records.
 

4. Retention of Previous Records

Schedule 2 does not explicitly address whether previous records, including the original birth certificate, will be retained, following a change of sex marker.  

The proposed Schedule 2 amendments will render official records unreliable – and arguably – entirely redundant, for crucial functions like medical data collection, law enforcement, statistical analyses, and public policy planning. 
 

5. Expansion of Sex Descriptors

The law introduces broad and varied terms for sex descriptors, like "froggender" and "Zodiacgender", which can be used on official documents as long as they are not obscene or excessively long. While this aims to be inclusive of some 112+ gender identities, it also raises practical concerns about the application of such identifiers in day-to-day scenarios like the use of public facilities, participation in sex-specific activities, and more. (i.e. If neither male or female, what toilet does a froggender use, if at all?)
 

6. Trans People are Already Protected in Law

• There is NO material need for these legislative changes. No evidence has been adduced to warrant the proposed amendments for gender identity.  

• Trans individuals are already robustly protected under the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act and the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. 

• "Transgender" is a protected attribute under Section 38S of the NSW ADA, and trans individuals are protected from vilification under Section 49ZXB of the NSW ADA

• Trans individuals can ALREADY live, work, study, and access services without needing to change their birth certificate, just like everyone else. 

 

7. Misrepresentation of Current Legal Requirements
•    NSW does NOT mandate surgery for a transgender person (NSW ADA). 
•    A transgender person can already freely live their life, free from discrimination, and without surgery, in NSW (NSW ADA).
•    What they cannot currently do is change a sex marker on a birth certificate to ANY conceived “identity” of choice. The narrative that surgery is a requirement imposes a false premise on the discussion, diverting attention from the substantial legal and social implications of erasing sex markers based on mere self-declaration.
 

8. No Discrimination or Barriers Flowing from Birth Certificate Sex Markers 

• There are no barriers to trans people flowing from birth certificate sex markers. The assertion about the necessity of updated birth certificates for everyday activities is fundamentally incorrect.

• The proposed BDMR Act amendments are a desire for symbolic recognition rather than addressing any real, concrete needs. The Schedule 2 amendments inflate a bureaucratic non-problem, diverting attention from the actual measures already in place in NSW that create no barriers for trans people.

• Essential activities such as employment, studying, or opening bank accounts do NOT require a birth certificate.

• Applying for a job does not require a person to submit a birth certificate. A tax file number is sufficient. The Australian Taxation Office allows personal records to be changed.

• Other identification is sufficient, such as driver's licenses, passports, ID cards, all of which allow for M, F markers, and, in the case of passports, allow an ‘X’ as the sex marker.

• Medicare cards are also acceptable and do not record any sex on the card.

• NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE IS NEEDED.

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9. Proposed Amendments to Sex Descriptors Create Mismatching Documents 

• The proposed amendments will create mismatching documents, resulting in the very discrimination Alex Greenwich claims the Equality Bill seeks to avoid.

• Currently, NO other ID documents in NSW or the Commonwealth allow sex descriptors other than Male, Female, or ‘X’ (for passports only). 

• If an applicant records “omni gender,” “astral gender,” “gender queer,” “non-binary,” “cloud gender,” or “eco gender” on their birth certificate, this will not resolve mismatching documents, rather, it will create mismatching documents because licenses and passports do not allow such descriptors. 

• Alex Greenwich, through the Equality Bill, claims to resolve issues for a specific cohort of people when, in reality, the Bill will create problems for them
   

10. Proposed Changes to Sex Descriptors Entrench Discrimination
The goal of enhancing inclusivity and allowing individuals to "feel better" about their legal identity risks being undermined by not thoroughly considering the real and practical effects these changes.

By allowing for the alteration of sex markers to an exhaustive list of subjective terms like cloud gender,’ ‘non-binary,’ ‘omni gender, ‘astral gender’, ‘mirror gender’ or ‘genderqueer’, the bill fosters new forms of exclusion/discrimination. For instance;
 

• Which changing rooms are individuals who identify as ‘cloud gender’ permitted to use?

• Can someone identifying as ‘non-binary’ apply for a position designated for females only?

• Will an ‘astral gender’ individual be allowed to compete in female-only sports leagues?
   

The amendments have serious, REAL-WORLD implications. While aiming to accommodate diverse gender identities, the bill sidelines those it seeks to protect and include.

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11. Access to Sex-Specific Spaces:

The proposed amendments fundamentally alter the recognition of sex by instituting a 'presumption of inclusion' based on self-identification. This means that ANY man, regardless of his appearance, must be presumed by the community to be female and legally entitled to use female-designated spaces. This is the reality of the proposed “self-ID” amendments in Schedule 2.

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Example: Clayton, a 52 year old man, decides that he is now a woman. He uses the female bathrooms at work, joins the women’s rugby team on the way home, and later showers next to 12-year-old girls in the communal bathroom following a swim at the local pool. Clayton Barr has not officially changed his birth certificate yet, but since ANY man can self-identify as a woman under the proposed amendments in schedule 2, no one questions Mr Barr’s presence in the female facilities, despite how frightening and distressing his presence is to other females. If Mr Barr is in a female space, he must be presumed to be a woman.

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12. Exploitation and Serious Risk to Female Safety

The proposed amendments open avenues for exploitation, as seen in cases where males access female-only spaces for malicious intent. Examples include the presence of male offenders in female prisons, where they have assaulted women, males claiming a female identity at the sentencing phase, participation of males claiming a female identity in women's and girls’ sports, and males who claim to have a female identity having unfettered access to women’s/girls’ intimate spaces such as rape crisis centres, changing rooms, and bathrooms. This is unacceptable.

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Recommendations:
 

1.    Reject sex descriptor changes by way of self-identification.
2.    Add a Gender Identity marker to birth certificates rather than allow falsification of sex markers.
3.    Preserve the original record of birth.

 

QUESTIONS

• Why does Alex Greenwich think it's appropriate to remove stringent medical and psychological safeguards for legal sex changes, allowing anyone to change their legal sex without limitations, thereby undermining the integrity of public records?
   

• Why does Alex Greenwich advocate for minors to change their legal sex with minimal oversight, effectively sidelining parental authority and exposing children to irreversible decisions without proper guidance?
   

• Why does Mr Greenwich advocate for a change of legal sex marker when he acknowledges that gender identity is different to sex and that no one changes sex?
   

• Why has Alex Greenwich failed to suggest a simple and practical solution by inserting a gender identity marker to birth certificates so that legal sex markers are retained as fact and gender identity is respected to address concerns of individuals who feel triggered?
   

• Why does Alex Greenwich propose allowing individuals to change their legal sex multiple times, potentially creating a legal loophole?
   

• Why does Alex Greenwich fail to address the retention of original birth records in Schedule 1, potentially allowing for the erasure of critical historical data?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich plan to address the significant concerns that these amendments will make official records unreliable, jeopardising essential functions like medical data collection, law enforcement, public policy planning, and allocation of resources?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich intend to combat the perils faced in other jurisdictions as a result of self-identification laws, such as men transgressing the boundaries of females, male violence and sexual violence being recorded as female crimes, and the media referring to male offenders as "she," thereby skewing crime statistics and undermining the safety and dignity of women?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich justify allowing limitless descriptors like "froggender", "astral gender", "omni gender", "mirror gender", "gender queer", or "Zodiacgender", to be recorded as a person's "sex" on their official legal birth certificate?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich justify the need for limitless sex descriptors when no other legal documents allow sex descriptors such as "froggender", "astral gender", "omni gender", "mirror gender", "gender queer", or "Zodiacgender" to be recorded?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich reconcile that the proposed amendments in Schedule 1 create mismatching documents rather than resolve mismatching documents, thereby entrenching discrimination against the very people the Bill purports to protect?
   

• Given that trans individuals already have robust protections under existing Commonwealth and NSW laws, how does Alex Greenwich justify their need?
   

• How does Mr Greenwich justify the amendments when he has provided no evidence to support the need for them? Claims of widespread and systemic discrimination are not sufficient without concrete, objective, peer-reviewed evidence?
   

• What concrete steps does Alex Greenwich propose to protect the safety and privacy of females in sex-specific spaces if any man can self-identify as female and gain access to these spaces?
   

• How does Alex Greenwich respond to the myriad of documented cases of males self-identifying as women and perpetrating harm against females, and what measures does he plan to put in place to prevent this? 
   

• Why does Alex Greenwich continue to dismiss the genuine concerns of women and young girls who are being injured, subjected to degradation and humiliation, forced to share showers and changing rooms with men, forced to compete against men in sports, and forced to remain silent about such matters?
   

• Why does Mr Greenwich feel it is acceptable that females lose their right to refuse consent to men and boys in their intimate spaces and will be coerced to accept males in female spaces, services and sports under the guise of inclusion?

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