Equality bill will allow transgender people to have their sex changed on their birth certificates without surgery
The NSW equality bill brings the state into line with others. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP
Rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people in New South Wales have been strengthened with the passing of a bill in the state parliament late on Thursday, after the legislation was watered down to gain Labor support.
The equality bill will give transgender people the ability to have their sex changed on their birth certificates without undergoing invasive surgery, bringing the state in line with others, and non-binary will become a gender option for birth certificates.
There were cheers in the chamber when the bill passed about 8.40pm. The independent MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the package a year ago, embraced the leader of the government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe after the vote that succeeded without the opposition’s support.
Greenwich said the changes would “improve LGBTIQA+ dignity, safety and equality” and thanked Sharpe for her work getting the legislation through the upper house.
“We’ve got more work to do and we start that work now with new confidence from these significant wins for our community,” he said on Thursday night.
After months of stagnation, Greenwich convinced the premier, Chris Minns, to support the bill by making a number of major concessions, including dropping changes to the anti-discrimination act.
While advocates welcomed the remaining elements of the bill, many also raised concerns that protections for LGBTQ+ teachers and students at private schools had been dumped.
The Equality Australia chief executive, Anna Brown, thanked community members who shared their stories and all those who campaigned to garner support for the changes.
“These new laws will have no impact on the lives of most people in our state, but for a small number of people it will make their lives immeasurably better,” she said after the bill passed.
“It’s a journey that continues as we turn our attention to the state’s anti-discrimination laws and our ongoing efforts to protect vulnerable teachers and students in religious and private schools across the state.”
Greenwich had hoped the Coalition would allow MPs a conscience vote on the bill but earlier in the week the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, confirmed his party would stand against the reforms.
Despite that, the Liberal MP for the North Shore, Felicity Wilson, crossed the floor.
“Just because your party doesn’t have a conscience vote doesn’t mean you don’t have a conscience,” she told ABC Radio Sydney earlier in the week.
Greenwich said on Wednesday that the Coalition was moving further to the right and “using my community as a political football, as a political punching bag”.
“I am concerned that we are seeing a rightwing trend developing within the Coalition,” he said. “No other leader has denied their members a conscience vote on LBGT issues.”
The opposition attorney general, Alister Henskens, held a news conference with religious figures and community members opposed to the reforms earlier in the week.
Among the concerns he raised was about the “impact upon the privacy of women’s spaces”.
“It’s moving too far and it’s moving too quickly,” he said.
But the attorney general, Michael Daley, said the opposition was misrepresenting the package.
The bill also repealed offences for living off the earnings of a sex worker and made threatening to “out” a person’s LGBTIQA+ status an offence.
New South Wales parliament passes bill to strengthen LGBTQ+ rights
Scottie's Playtime 
It’s a shame that that one of the two major political parties in NSW (and Australia) still opposes trans rights.
When legislation legalising gender self identification was passed in Aotearoa in 2021, it was passed unanimously – not even one abstention. At that time there were 6 political parties in Parliament including those on the left, right, centrist, populist, indigenous and libertarian.
One point I need to emphasise is that at that time there were equal numbers of men and women in parliament. Approximately 12% of the members of parliament were LGBTQIA+. It’s very apparent that progress on human rights, be they gender rights, LGBTQIA+ rights indigenous rights, and in fact right for any minority group progress further and faster when all they are well represented in the legislature and their voices heard.
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Hi Barry. Another reason to like NSW. Inclusion and equality seem to be a high priority there. Treating people decently and kindly seems to be something your society believes in. Any chance if tRump wins (against all the polls and enthusiasm) would your country consider letting refugee LGBTQ+ people move there? Just asking because I know two married openly gay men that live in a red state with a maga governor who may need a safe country to move to? Best wishes.
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While Aotearoa New Zealand welcomes immigrants (1 in 3.5 New Zealanders are immigrants, two of them being the wife and a daughter-in-law) and being LGBTQ+ is entirely a non issue, unfortunately kindness and decency for refugees and asylum seekers is in very short supply. We have a cap of 1500 refugees per year (up from 800 prior to the Ardern government) which is ridiculously tiny and embarrassing for a nation of our prosperity.
To make matters much worse, health plays a huge part in being able to gain residency. Immigration has some sort of calculator that determines how much an immigrant will likely cost the health system over the immigrants lifetime, Exceed the threshold (not publicly available) and you will not be able to move here.
Just to illustrate how ridiculous the restrictions are, anyone with an autism diagnosis is automatically prohibited from moving here. No exceptions. There was a recent example where a family had migrated to NZ around 5 years previously and had settled in well. Then the authorities discovered that one of the children had received an autism diagnosis a number of years before they moved here. Even though he had no health issues and little in the way of support needs, Immigration revoked the residency visa of the autistic child, forcing the entire family to leave the country.
Immigration tried to give the illusion of decency by stating that they weren’t forcing the entire family to move and that the autistic person could remain in the country as a dependent until the age of 18 before being required to leave.
I could quote many more examples, but relaying the stories tends to make my blood boil. I think if it reaches the stage that living in the US becomes unsafe, your best option would be fleeing north to Canada. Compared to NZ, canada is far more welcoming to immigrants in need.
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Thanks Barry for the information. But if it comes to it first we will go to a blue state and then if project 2025 comes to full fruition then we will head to Canada. If nothing else my adoptive parents were immigrants from Canada. While I was born in the US to at least a US citizen father, I could claim asylum if needed easier with Canada. Best wishes.
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