By Bronwyn Williams and Isla MacGregor – Women Speak Tasmania
Roen Meijers of Transforming Tasmania continues to be confused about the issue of Birth Certificate registrations as it is not gender that is recorded, but sex.
Additionally, the Options Paper on transgender law reform released for public consultation by former Anti-discrimination Commissioner, Robin Banks, in 2016 was only that – an Options Paper.
The consultation process for this paper was not widely publicised, the submissions were not made public and Ms Banks did not prepare a final report for the Attorney-General before leaving the position of Anti-discrimination Commissioner in early 2017.
There was, however, controversy in the media over the manner in which the consultation was conducted and the lack of public information about the process.
Today, most Tasmanians are not aware of this previous consultation, nor do they understand what the issues concerning transgender law reform entail.
It is disingenuous of Roen Meijers to suggest that further consultation will harm transgender people when most Tasmanians know nothing about the issues or the impacts on the wider community of Labor and the Greens’ proposed reforms.
Further, last year’s vote concerned same sex marriage, not transgender law reform aimed at allowing self-identification changes to sex markers on birth certificates by transgender persons. The latter has nothing to do with discrimination on grounds of sexual preference.
To suggest that fearmongering in the same sex marriage debate was aimed at transgender people is spurious indeed.
The continued stream of wild assertions coming from Transforming Tasmania in order to fast track their agenda and shut down public scrutiny of the proposed legislative changes begs the questions why the transgender rights activists want to curtail freedom of speech on this issue.
There are alternative legislative reform proposals that will protect the sex-based rights of women and girls, and allow transgender persons to have formal recognition of their chosen ‘gender identity’, without the need to change the historical record of a birth certificate.
We believe all options should be carefully considered in a broad-ranging public consultation process.
Source: Tasmanian Times
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2018/11/transgender-campaign-misinformation-continues