Susie O’Brien: Why birth certificate gender debate risks alienating the moderates

WHILE transgender rights need to be protected, the latest debate shows we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the population is unambiguously male or female, writes Susie O’Brien.

Transgender issues only affect a very small proportion of the population. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

I AM all for transgender rights, but there is no need to move towards some gender-free asexual utopia. Most people are happy to be male or female and use the terms without fear or thought. There’s nothing wrong with that.

While the rights of those who have ambiguous or transitory gender identity need to be protected, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the population are unambiguously male or female.

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It’s hard for those who are transgender and don’t fit neatly in either male or female categories primarily because gender matters in our society.

Many aspects of our society are gendered: we have single-sex schools, single-sex sport competitions and people pay a huge range of different prices for products depending whether they are a male or female.

Just about every form has a tick-box for sex and there are different men’s and women’s haircuts, dry cleaning services, clothing, footwear, health products and fitness services. Gender comes into play in just about every aspect of our lives: applying for a job, choosing a partner and enrolling in education.

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Many aspects of our society are gendered, including single-sex schools. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

That is why an intense debate is raging as the Tasmanian parliament considers a bill that would remove sex from birth certificates.

It doesn’t erase sex altogether — a baby’s biological sex would be still recorded on birth and hospital records — but would not appear on the birth certificate.

The idea is that transgender people should not be trapped by a birth certificate that does not match their gender identity. It’s also designed to take the pressure off children born intersex and their parents.

I am sympathetic to their plight and I think more should be done to make it easier for those involved to have a birth certificate that reflects their gender.

But it doesn’t mean we have to trash birth certificates for the rest of us. Why can’t we do more to help those directly involved, but keep standard gender labels that accurately reflect the vast majority of the population?

In the 2016 Census, people were asked for the first time if they wanted to identify as “other” than male or female and 1260 people did so — a rate of 5.4 per one hundred thousand people.

And yet this is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. Standard estimates put the transgender and intersex population at between 0.05 per cent and 1.7 per cent.

There is clearly an issue to be dealt with , but one that affects only a very small proportion of the population.

At present most Australian states and territories already allow birth certificates to show a person’s sex as something other than male or female. In some places it’s “other” and in others it’s intersex, indeterminate or non-binary. But this is not enough for some in the trans community who feel that doesn’t reflect their needs; for them gender is a matter of how they feel, regardless of what their body looks like.

In many states like Victoria, birth certificates can be changed, but only if a person has had gender reassignment surgery. The problem is that there are many trans people who have not had surgery, but who are living as a member of the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate. They find it creates a lot of discrimination and potential problems when applying for official documents and jobs.

So why not make it easier for people to have birth certificates that match their gender? Of course, there should be a formal process, such as a number of professionals vouching for that person’s self-ascribed gender, but why wouldn’t that work?

Donald Trump is threatening to define gender as only male or female, turning back decades of important sexuality rights. Picture: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Those arguing for gender to be removed altogether from birth certificates say that it’s not going to make one bit of difference to the rest of the population. This may be technically true, but it negates the fact that most people like the idea that birth certificates have a person’s sex on it; it’s a tradition we’ve grown up with that is meaningful to us.

I am all for trans rights, but going too far will mean putting the majority off side, which I would think is the last thing people want.

The gender backlash is real and powerful — just look at what’s happening in the United States, where President Donald Trump is threatening to define gender as only male or female and turn back decades of important sexuality rights.

Just as trans and intersex people are fighting for their right to have the label they want assigned to them, many mainstream men and women want to be able to continue to be seen as male or female.

Transgender and intersex people deserve to have control on their legal identity and personal information. As one of the most marginalised and discriminated groups in our society, they deserve nothing less.

But surely more can be done to help them without stripping away customs and labels that are meaningful to the rest of us?

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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