PIAC’s submission urges NSW Parliament to support the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 (aka ‘Equality Bill’) as introduced by the Independent Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich MP.
Our submission focused on two priority areas: broad reform of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) and amendments to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 (NSW).
In terms of the Anti-Discrimination Act, we specifically support:
- Ensuring bisexual, non-binary and intersex people are protected against discrimination and civil vilification;
- Removing exceptions that allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers;
- Reforms to the general religious exceptions in sections 56(c) and 56(d), to ensure lawful discrimination by religious organisations delivering public services is narrow; and
- Reforms to other exceptions, including removing the ability of faith-based adoption agencies to discriminate against rainbow families, removing the unjustified exceptions allowing discrimination by superannuation providers against transgender people, and reforms to the exceptions applying to transgender people in sport.
In terms of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, we support removing the requirement for trans and gender diverse people to undergo genital surgery in order to access birth certificates matching who they are – noting NSW is now the only jurisdiction in Australia to impose this requirement.
We also support reforms to recognise sex or gender markers beyond male or female, so that non-binary and gender diverse people have access to accurate identity documentation.
