Victorian trans birth certificate amendment passes Lower House
Image: Equality Australia's Sage Akouri
Victoria’s Legislative Assembly has today passed an amendment to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996 removing barriers for trans and gender diverse people changing the legal gender on their birth certificates.
Currently, a person born in Victoria can only change the sex on their birth certificate if they have undergone “sexual reassignment surgery,” can provide statutory declarations from two medical practitioners verifying their surgery, and they can only be recognised as “male” or “female” on their birth certificate.
If the bill is made law people will be able to change their sex on their birth certificates without undergoing surgery as long as they can provide a supporting statement from an adult who has known them for at least a year stating that they believe the application is made in good faith.
The Bill passing this first hurdle follows a rally at the Victorian State Parliament yesterday.
Transgender Victoria spokesperson, Sally Goldner, called the passing of the amendment, “one step on the way to birth certificate equality.”
“Changing my sex on my birth certificate gives me a sense of safety that I’ve never had before,” Sage Akouri from Equality Australia said.
“My human right to identity documents that reflect who I am should never have been debated in Parliament.”
“[But] birth certificate reform is a vital step for trans rights. Trans activists have been working hard to make birth certificates more trans-inclusive and now we need everyone to help make sure that the upper house passes this bill too,” Kochava Lillit added.
Chief Executive of Equality Australia, Anna Brown said it remained to be seen whether the legislation would also be passed by Victoria’s Upper House, so the fight is not over yet.
“A birth certificate is the first document a person has – it says who you are, and where you belong,” Brown said.
“Being forced to use ID that doesn’t match your identity creates daily problems when applying for a job, going to Centrelink or enrolling to study.”
“We still face a fight in the Legislative Council – and we’ll be contacting those MPs to let them know how important this reform is.”
The Bill will now move to the Legislative Council where a final debate and vote will take place next week.
It is not law yet – the bill still has to pass the upper house as well. The bill is poorly drafted because it has several loopholes and spelling mistakes within the 48 pages. One huge loophole is allowing very dangerous sex offenders to change sex/gender while in prison for heinous dispicibal crimes. I really want to bill sent to a committee immediately for study as I am and many others (even within the LGBT community and women’s feminist groups) are greatly and deeply concerned about the upcoming issues within 2019. The bill is very similar to the 2016 model that was voted down by the LNP! I agree 100% that the surgery and sterilization requirements need to go in the bin and repealed – as they are explicitly against human rights and dignity of the individual person. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has quoted this too.
Gay Libertarian Paul Mitchell.