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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-31 Daily Xml
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Gender

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. S.L. Game:

That this council—

1. Accepts that there are biologically two sexes and, in turn, a reflection of two genders;

2. Acknowledges that two genders have been accepted common knowledge for most of history;

3. Recognises that the idea of binary genders not being accepted language is denigrating to both males and females and harmful to our traditions; and

4. Acknowledges the importance of gendered language in society, specifically for explicit language and communication.

(Continued from 3 May 2023.)

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (17:09): I rise to speak to indicate my support for the motion from the Hon. Sarah Game and to place some comments on the record. It is important we affirm the scientific fact of biology that for the vast majority of the population, in fact 99 per cent of the population, there are two sexes and two genders.

I think it is also important to acknowledge, though, that there are medical and genetic situations where the sex of a person is not straightforward, known as non-dimorphic sexual development. Turner syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, ovotestis and vaginal agenesis are all intersex syndromes, and it is estimated in literature that approximately 1 per cent of our population have intersex variations. We must always be respectful to these individuals and ensure they do not feel stigmatised in society.

While there is approximately 1 per cent of the population born with non-dimorphic sexual development that impacts their gender allocation, these are not the groups calling for changes in our language. As Australian journalist Claire Lehmann recently wrote:

In the human species, to be a woman meant you were not a biological male, and to be a man meant you were not a biological female. This distinction was not a function of bigotry: it was just how the English language worked.

We should not be cancelling the use of gendered language used by the majority of people for a minority. I am certainly sympathetic and empathetic towards those who are confused about their gender; I cannot imagine what that would be like. It is important that we are free to explore self-determination; however, it cannot be at the expense of others, particularly when in this case others are women and represent half of the state's population.

We find ourselves in a situation where we cannot be fair and equal, and we should not expend the rights and safety of the many women to avoid offending a small few. There are many women in our state, in our country and around the world who, by virtue of being biologically female and acknowledging that fact, are being sidelined, minimised and harassed by those who push radical gender ideology. The reality is that some women are speaking out because they feel unsafe, and we should not be ignoring these cries.

I believe that the majority of South Australians share my views on gender, and recent sentiment has shown that the South Australian community simply want us to do what we have been elected to do, and that is to get on with the job of governing for the betterment of the state. The people of South Australia expect us to be focusing on the issues that matter—record ramping, the skyrocketing cost of living, housing affordability and availability, workforce shortages and better regional health outcomes. These are the issues that matter.

Again, I indicate that I support this motion. Whilst it is important to clarify our positions, I feel it unnecessary to give this issue further airtime. We all just simply need to move on.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (17:12): I rise today to speak in support of the motion from the Hon. Sarah Game MLC. As a woman, I accept that there are two biological sexes. I acknowledge that this has been the case throughout history and continues to this day.

Ninety-nine per cent of our society's genders are their birth genders, based on the 2021 Census; therefore, gender identity is not an issue for the vast majority. A mammoth portion of our society are biologically men and women. I agree with Ms Game that this needs to be acknowledged and respected. Respect is required right across our community, and this issue is no different. We should not be afraid to use such terms as 'women' and 'men'. We should be proud to be a woman or a man, a boy or a girl.

One area I will touch on is safety for women. The definition of a woman should not be a complicated issue. It should be about ensuring women are safe and supported, where required. All women deserve to be safe and secure, whether it be safety in sport, safety in toilets, or safety in the prison system. We must protect those who are physically smaller and potentially at risk.

This is paramount, and I commend the work done by Senator Claire Chandler in this space. Senator Chandler has flagged concerns relating to women's sport and ensuring women's sport is protected, ensuring change rooms are safe and no on-field issues occur with non-biological women participating in women's sport. The same can be said for our justice system, where women's prisons should be for biological women only. All women deserve to be safe and secure.

Gender wars are not needed. Respect for genders is required. It is okay to be a woman or a man. It is okay to live your life how you see fit. In this place, we must focus on what is most important: the people of South Australia. The people of South Australia are more focused on the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis, the skills shortage and the energy crisis. The people of South Australia would like us to focus on these areas.

The Hon. L.A. HENDERSON (17:14): As elected members, I believe we have a responsibility to represent the views and the values of our constituents to the best of our ability. There are so many issues South Australians are facing, whether it be rising cost-of-living pressures, rising power prices, a crumbling healthcare system, lagging education standards—the list goes on.

I do not believe that this is an issue that the parliament should be focusing its time on, particularly with the current cost-of-living crisis. Yet, it seems in recent times the notion of sex and gender has come up in different ways in this place and across society more broadly. With that in mind, I will keep my contribution brief so that we can get back to what I believe South Australians believe their members of parliament should be spending their time focusing on.

Gender and sex have largely been accepted as non-controversial for most of human history. It seems absurd that this chamber should need to affirm and state what has been accepted for thousands of years. Is it really the place of a parliamentary chamber to affirm the same, rather than accept in general terms the societal norms and customs which have permeated and evolved through society since humanity developed the wonder of language?

From a young age you were taught that there are two sex chromosomes: females have two copies of the X chromosome while males have one X and one Y chromosome, noting that there are some rare genetic conditions where this may differ. Teaching and believing that somehow gender and sex is non-binary is reminiscent of the novel 1984, where people are conditioned to believe that two plus two is five. It is somewhat illogical and makes you wonder whether we are heading down a path where we will ignore the long-established facts of science and biology because there is a small minority agitating for us to believe in non evidence-based ideology. Frankly, it is a dangerous and slippery slope.

As a member of parliament I am—and I hope my colleagues are—here to make fair, rational and reasonable decisions that benefit the greatest number of people across our state. These decisions are not always easy; we know that they are not always popular. At the risk of no doubt causing some offence, which is most certainly not my intention, I cannot in good faith support that sex is somehow fluid in nature.

It has been widely accepted for many centuries that there are two sexes: one male and the other female. We are a tolerant and accepting society. We allow individuals to explore and express their views and opinions freely, as we should, without discrimination or prejudice. I have no doubt that the extreme left-wing activists will seize on this motion and see it as divisive and somehow discriminatory.

We cannot be pushed by a small and very vocal group of activists; rather, contrary to such divisive views of the world, we must as a community be inclusive of all people, no matter what they believe. All said, the harm we will do by making policy decisions based on activist minority groups who act to silence others, themselves doing so in the interests of inclusion and diversity, will be devastating.

If there are people in our community who wish to be gender fluid, no-one is stopping them. However, on the other hand, I do not believe that we should change to the detriment of the majority our language and how we have communicated consistently in years gone by. In a world in which the concept of gender is being radicalised, politicised and weaponised, it is important that we push back on the agenda of the radical left.

We increasingly hear a loud minority pushing for the use of gender-neutral terms. Contrary to mainstream views, there are sections of our community demanding that we use, for risk of offence, language like 'chest feeding' instead of 'breast feeding; 'birthing parent' instead of 'mother'; a push by some for the removal of terms like 'he' or 'she', with the replacement of 'them' and 'their' across the board; where we see some senior public servants struggle to define a woman; where there is a need to fight to ensure that women's scholarships in areas of low representation, in areas, for example, like engineering or science, do in fact go to women; and where we continue to see a global fight, it seems, to protect the integrity of women's sport and women's use of their own bathrooms.

I am not sure when it became controversial to say that men should not participate in women's sport, and that it poses a risk to female players for men to do so, not to mention the fact that it is not fair as men are biologically built differently and therefore have an advantage, or that certain women feel unsafe at the idea that men could use a female bathroom.

In April, we saw a report in The Advertiser about a mother suing after her child was allegedly given a chest binder, which is an undergarment used to flatten breast tissue, in her 13-year-old son's room and allegedly given gender-affirming therapy. Amber's family lives in Maine, USA, where school policy excludes parents from gender-affirming counselling because of the risk that some parents may react negatively to or try to stop their child's transition, according to reporting by the New York Post and the Maine Wire. The mum was not aware that the gender-transitioning discussions had continued in secret until she found the chest binder.

In May, we saw reports in The Advertiser of a parliamentary committee in this parliament which asked councils to remove gendered pronouns from their by-laws, including the words 'he' and 'she', with a preference for gender-neutral language rather than gender-specific language. I think many Australians are concerned with this trajectory, and I am sure that they are sick of being called transphobic or even homophobic by the extreme left for what are frankly commonsense views on protecting the rights for women to feel safe or merely upholding the notion of sex and gender, which they have been taught for decades and which has been around for millennia. Simply put, however, this place should be focusing on more important issues at hand. With that, I support the motion.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (17:21): I rise to add my comments in support of the honourable member's motion. As someone who has invariably been called pale, male, and sometimes stale, there are those who will take offence that I even hold an opinion on this topic. However, mine is a view firmly based on scientific facts, and shared by an overwhelming majority of South Australians.

I want to say at this point that I take each person at face value and appreciate them for their individuality. Small-l liberalism, which forms a key pillar of the ideology of the Liberal Party, ensures that the individual is protected against the tyranny of the many, protecting minorities who the collective view of the masses might otherwise drown out.

However, the individual's right to choose does not extend to the protection of those whose ideas are not rooted in fact or reality. There are, allegedly, so many new genders being concocted that it is hard to keep up with them and their respective pronouns. Indeed, the online lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender news network has written, and I quote:

There is no definitive answer as to how many transgender pronouns there are, as people are always creating new ones…

I remain open-minded and respectful, but so flimsy is the radical gender theory from the collective left that their glass jaw is on display with their treatment of genuine feminists. Witness the vitriolic, the over-reactive and the violent treatment of feminists such as Kellie-Jay Keen, J.K. Rowling, Germaine Greer and Victorian MP Moira Deeming. I may not agree with all their views on these matters, but the type of feminism they fight for is undoubtedly pro-women.

Those who are leveraging the attack on these women, and on women's sport and women's public spaces in general, are wholly embedded in identity politics and intersectionality, and their primary focus on the struggles of transgender people in enlightened First World democracies is at the expense of women.

I acknowledge that there are some people who are born with ambiguous genitalia, considered intersex, and those who experience gender dysphoria. However, we know that these issues only affect approximately 1.7 per cent of people who are born intersex, and somewhere between 0.002 per cent and 0.014 per cent of individuals who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

As a liberal democracy, we must not discount the needs of these people. We must afford them equal protections and rights as we are all afforded; however, this does not mean that we must upend our thinking of what defines a woman or a man, or that gender exists on a never-ending spectrum. Instead, we can acknowledge and respect each other's differences without removing all gendered language from our vernacular.

I disagree with those who would overemphasise our differences at the expense of acknowledging our inherent sameness—that we are all unique individuals on our path to leading fulfilling and meaningful lives. Vitriolic attacks on biological females who want to maintain safe and separate spaces for women have no place in this debate. To be traditionally pro-women should not warrant being labelled a bigot.

We must respect each other's views while acknowledging the biological reality that underpins the objective foundation that human beings are typically born into one of two genders. To do otherwise is to invalidate both men and women alike, and is fundamentally anti-science and anti-human.

In commending the objective of this motion to the chamber I would only convey my disappointment that our time is consumed by defending established facts that are acknowledged and understood by the majority of South Australians. I would prefer nothing more than to be debating real issues our communities are dealing with daily, such as the high cost of living, the housing crisis and improving access to medical treatment in our regions. I know this place can do better, and I know our community demands it of us.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:25): I rise somewhat briefly to affirm that the Greens will be opposing this motion. Why? Because we must respect the science on sex and gender, and variations in sex beyond the binary have been acknowledged globally for many years. Indeed, as the Hon. Ben Hood just touched upon, they cover approximately 1.7 per cent of our population.

However, simplistic approaches to sex and gender start even before we are born. Are they a girl or a boy? That question is often asked of expecting parents, almost out of habit. Some seem to think that the answer is easy, but biology is far more complicated and far more interesting. Some of us, some 1.7 per cent of us, are born with variations in sexual development—also known as intersex conditions or variations.

It is estimated that up to 1.7 per cent of the population has an intersex trait and approximately 0.5 per cent, or one-half of a per cent—have clinically identifiable sexual reproductive variations. Yet people often assume that the world is divided neatly into two groups of people—male and female—and that everyone's biological and genetic characteristics fit into one of those two categories. This, of course, is not always the case.

There are millions of people around the world who have sexual characteristics that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Many, though not all, of these people identify as intersex. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural variations that affect genitals, gonads, hormones, chromosomes, and reproductive organs. Sometimes these characteristics are visible at birth, sometimes they appear at puberty, and sometimes they are not physically apparent at all.

According to experts, about 1.7 per cent of the population is born with these intersex traits. It sounds small—in fact, it was just dismissed—but to assist MLCs with understanding what 1.7 per cent is, it is comparable to the number of people born with red hair. There is at least one in this parliament, there is at least one in the Senate, and I am sure we have all met somebody with red hair. Ask yourself: have you ever met somebody with red hair? It is that common, so it is not that rare at all really.

Despite this, the term intersex is still widely misunderstood, and intersex people are massively under-represented. Many intersex children undergo surgery in an effort to supposedly normalise them, even where those interventions are often invasive, irreversible and not performed for emergency reasons. Although doctors and parents may be well-meaning, the reality is that the procedures performed on intersex children can cause major problems, including infertility, pain, incontinence and lifelong psychological suffering. All this, just to make children conform to society's idea of what a girl or a boy should look like.

I refer members to research by Amnesty International that has highlighted how this constitutes a human rights violation. These interventions are often performed on children who are too young to meaningfully participate in decisions about their own bodies and parents who are not often properly informed about the potential risks.

States like ours have a duty to combat harmful stereotypes about gender and diversity. Instead, many choose to subject children to needless operations just to make them fit. Being intersex has nothing to do with being transgender. Our physical sexual characteristics have nothing to do with how we consider our gender identity or who we are attracted to. The word 'transgender' or 'trans' is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. The word 'intersex' relates to physical sexual characteristics and not to an internal sense of identity. An intersex person may also identify as trans, but they are separate things because gender and sex are separate. An intersex person may be straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or asexual and may identify as female, male, both or neither.

Both intersex and trans people have the right to choose their own gender identity and should never be forced to live with their bodies or identities that they do not feel comfortable with. Society must become more open to all the diversity that being a person means. Trans and gender-diverse people should have the right to be free from discrimination and have autonomy over their bodies. Despite the societal progress made, it is clear that there are still multiple barriers preventing transgender and gender-diverse people from affirming their identities.

The Greens understand the importance of funding for trans and gender-diverse needs to be driven by principles of self-determination, bodily autonomy and co-design. No-one's body should be stigmatised, and intersex people have the right to bodily integrity, including personal consent to medical or surgical interventions. Acceptance of a person's gender identity requires at least some acknowledgment that they are natural and real—natural and real—and that is the problem with this motion: a fundamental misunderstanding and misrepresentation of sex, gender and sexuality, opening the door for attacks on transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming individuals and groups.

Using gender-neutral language does not, in fact, denigrate or deny the validity of the identification of cisgendered people. We use collective nouns daily that are not gendered. Some examples are people, citizens, residents, voters, employees, students, children and adults. None of these stop individuals using gendered pronouns or titles for themselves. Gender-neutral language is inclusive of all genders and recognises that all humans are innately worthy regardless of how they identify.

As representatives of our community, we cannot let this chamber be used to justify discrimination. The simple male/female binary does not effectively express the normal range of being human. Understanding this and incorporating it into our legislation and policies offers better possibilities, greater equity and more joy for our state. Our children should be allowed to grow up the way they are. All people deserve to live free of shame, stigma and pain, especially if they are neither a boy nor a girl.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (17:33): I want to speak very briefly against the motion. In so doing, I reinforce the comments made by my colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks that this motion is wrong because it is based on false assumptions being made about sex that do not have an evidentiary base. I also find this motion to be wrong in terms of its political focus. It is part of a transphobic and intersexphobic campaign that the One Nation Party has been running at a national level. They are now importing it into South Australia, and I think we should not be having resolutions like this that are about dividing the community taking up our time here in this chamber.

I noted a number of members of the Liberal opposition stood up and spoke on this motion and all remarked that it should not be a priority for the parliament. If that is the case, I am not sure why they have all seen the need to stand up and comment on it, particularly when one considers that, in the context of a 14-hour debate last night on anti-protesting laws, there was a five-minute contribution from the opposition on the issue.

Next week, we are going to be dealing with residential tenancies. If they are serious about the cost-of-living crisis, I hope they all engage on that debate. I do not want to see this sort of divisive stuff being dealt with in our parliament. I wanted to speak because I am an out and proud gay man. I am a member of the LGBTI community, and I see this sort of stuff as being an extension of the homophobia that has been directed to people like me in the past. So I am very much against it, and I really want to call it out for what it is.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (17:35): I rise to support the motion of the Hon. Ms Game. To be honest, if I were drafting the motion, I would have drafted it somewhat differently. I am not entirely happy with some of the wording, but I do not want that to take away from my support for what she is trying to do because her intent seems clear to me, and that is to establish essentially the long-accepted belief, if you like, the long-accepted practice, the long-accepted view, that there are two sexes and two genders and in fact, as she stated when introducing this motion, gender is determined by biological sex, and I agree. It is basic science and it should be uncomplicated, in my view.

For most of history, it has been collectively accepted that sex is binary and people are born either male or female, with very few exceptions. Yes, there are people who are born intersex. There are people who experience gender dysphoria. No-one is disputing that. That is a fact. I did not hear anyone dispute that. In no way should those people be treated in any less a way than anyone else. No-one is arguing for that either. But it is a fact that throughout history, most societies have always accepted that it was self-evident and undisputed that a newborn's gender was either male or female.

That is when a child is born, but I remember my own circumstance even prior to that when I went to have the 22-week scan with my wife when Lisa was pregnant. They scanned the womb, and the doctor there said, 'Would you like to know what sex your baby is?' We said, 'Yes, we would.' The doctor said, 'It's a girl.' We said, 'Are you sure?' She said yes. Even at that very early stage, it was self-evident that it was either male or female. There was no discussion of any other sex, of course.

One's sex is not based on how one feels: it is a matter of biology and anatomy. This relatively new concept of being able to choose your own gender is having detrimental ramifications in many aspects of our society, in my view. We are seeing biological males, for example, competing with biological females, and those biological males are winning medals that should have been awarded to the biological girls or women who would not have to compete with them in other circumstances.

I know of instances where young South Australian girls are playing contact sports alongside boys identifying as girls who are afraid of getting injured by those boys identifying as girls, yet they and their parents feel they cannot speak up for fear of being labelled a bigot, causing some sort of disturbance or even making the people who are identifying that way feel uncomfortable. I am sure they do not want to do that either, in most cases.

There are also more and more reports of biological males opting to use girls' and women's change rooms and their toilets, for example, making many biological females extremely uncomfortable. I have sympathy with that. I can imagine that would be uncomfortable. It appears that girls and women in particular have been unnecessarily disadvantaged by the agenda to blur the lines around gender identity, which I do not accept.

When I recently raised the issue of gender-neutral language in the parliament standing orders, I had a huge response from the community, something like 500-plus emails to my office, individual unique emails to my office, from people who strongly supported my position. I will quote from one particularly. They all had this similar theme, but one of them stated this in particular: 'Politicians should focus on real issues and not play silly woke word games.' That is a strong position and not everyone is going to see it that way, but that was the general nature of the response I got in more than 500 typed emails.

So I strongly support this motion. I do so with no intention to cause offence. I hope it does not do that. It is certainly not something I want to do. I do not seek to cause any offence. I think if people want to claim to have this gender or that gender that is entirely up to them, but to me, I do not accept it. To me, there are two genders. There are two sexes, and that is it.

I think I would echo the comments of my colleagues as well: I do wish that we could move on from these sorts of debates and focus on the sorts of things that I think the general public expects us to focus on; that is, the cost-of-living crisis, record levels of ramping at the moment and the housing crisis, as the Hon. Mr Simms outlined. These are the real issues that I think people have elected us to this place to deal with and not some of these, what you might call, other issues.

The Hon. S.L. GAME (17:39): I have asked the chamber to recognise that there are two biological sexes, which are determined at fertilisation, and also the importance of gendered language. The reason I did that is because it was very clearly expressed to me by the community that that was important to them, so I think there has been a complete misread. Many members of the community are actually very concerned about what they see as a slippery slope of a sex confusion pandemic amongst young people, and they see the definition and establishment of male and female in gendered language as extremely important.

We have a situation where teachers are afraid to use basic terms like 'boys' and 'girls' and school principals have confided in me that they are afraid of their own job loss if they do not take an affirmation-only approach with children in their care, despite feeling that mental health issues or family breakdown are in fact responsible.

I do thank the Liberals for their support, particularly with regard to safety of women in sport and other environments, but I disagree that it is not important to the community. It has been expressed loud and clear to me that it is important to the community. I just want to comment as well that I find it really unusual, and it is in fact very unsatisfactory, that we have a situation where the government has not bothered to comment on the motion. I think, again, that is a complete misread of how the community feel. Many in the community are highly distressed about what they perceive as a woke agenda being pushed in schools and indoctrinating young people and this affirmation-only approach, as I have said.

As I said when I introduced the motion and will repeat now, there is no place for bullying or discrimination, but that needs to extend to children, parents and members of the community who understand that there are two biological sexes, male and female, determined at fertilisation and wish to protect the use of gendered language.

The council divided on the motion:

Ayes 4

Noes 9

Majority 5

AYES

Centofanti, N.J. Game, S.L. (teller) Henderson, L.A.
Hood, B.R.

NOES

Bourke, E.S. Franks, T.A. (teller) Hanson, J.E.
Hunter, I.K. Maher, K.J. Martin, R.B.
Ngo, T.T. Pnevmatikos, I. Simms, R.A.

PAIRS

Lee, J.S. Wortley, R.P. Hood, D.G.E.
Scriven, C.M. Girolamo, H.M. Lensink, J.M.A.

Motion thus negatived.

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