‘Sex swaps’ for children in Queensland

Children in Queensland as young as 12 will be able to change their legal sex without their parent’s permission, if they obtain a court order, under proposed legislation.

But The Australian state’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill would also allow any child under 16 to change their birth certificates, if both parents consent.

The proposals aim to remove protections which the Queensland Government argued “unnecessarily medicalises the recognition of a person’s lived identity”.

Unquestioning

Parliamentary briefing notes accompanying the Bill state that the ‘self-declaration’ model “allows a person to declare their sex marker with no requirement for a medical statement from a doctor or psychologist.”

16 to 18-year-olds will also be able to change their legal sex with a supporting letter written by anyone who has known the child for one year and is at least 18.

Under 16s will require an assessment by a “developmentally informed practitioner”, which could simply be a speech pathologist or school guidance officer.

The ‘assessment’ is not intended to “question the appropriateness of a child’s transition” but rather ascertain “where the child is at in their journey and their understanding of their identity”.

‘Unscientific’

Professor Patrick Parkinson, Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland, said: “The Bill is premised on the idea that we are born in the wrong body, or people could be born in the wrong body. There is actually not much evidence for that.”

He told the Legal Affairs and Safety Committee, which is due to report on the Bill later this month, that trans and non-binary are social or psychological identities, not medical conditions.

In its submission to the Committee on the Bill, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said it “introduces subjective and unscientific social characteristics to ‘sex’ and is out-of-step with community expectations for parental rights and the safety of women”.