It is a sad fact the most beautiful state in Australia is also the most backward. Before you accuse me of being prejudiced against those on the other side of Bass Strait, just reflect on the observations of Jonathan West, a former University of Tasmania professor. “Tasmania,” he wrote in 2013, “ranks at the bottom among Australian states on virtually every dimension of economic, social and cultural performance.”
Harsh but true. A report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for 2011-12 revealed that half of Tasmanians aged between 15 to 74 are functionally illiterate. More than half are functionally innumerate. The state is disproportionately dependent on GST allocation. A third of the population receive some form of welfare benefit, and the higher education rates are the lowest in the country.
In the four years since the Liberals returned to government after 16 years in the wilderness there have been improvements. A Deloitte Access Economics report in July found Tasmania had its “strongest economy in years” and that the outlook was “remarkably good”. Obviously, there is still much to be done. So what is the number one priority for the Labor Opposition and the Greens, which together make up almost half of Tasmania’s House of Assembly?
That was demonstrated this week when the lower house voted 13-12 to, among other things, remove gender from birth certificates; extend so-called hate speech legislation to cover “gender expression”; and allow people as young as 16 to change gender simply by completing a statutory declaration. There will no longer be a requirement for realignment surgery to effect recognition. Although the government had opposed the moves, they passed thanks to Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey’s casting vote.
As the result of the vote became clear, Labor and Greens MP hugged each other in celebration, a sign perhaps of how much each party has in common these days. “To us, this was always about giving people a choice in the gender they have printed on their birth certificate,” said Ella Haddad, Labor’s shadow Attorney-General.
Haddad’s breezy declaration is disingenuous rubbish. As the draft legislation originally stood, not even parents would have had the option of including their children’s gender on certificates. Only this month after a backlash and an intervention by federal Labor leader Bill Shorten did the party concede that parents should have a right to include this, prompting the angry Greens leader, Cassy O’Connor, to label the shift a “breach of faith”.
Supporters of these amendments claim a gender-free birth certificate will have no effect on the vast majority. Viewed in a wider sense, however, the connotations are not only sinister but outright creepy. As Sky News broadcaster Paul Murray noted this week “The idea that the norm, the starting point for gender in Tasmania, is now blank — that is bizarre to me”.
It is an aggressive creed that abhors the biological male/female distinction and regards gender as a tabula rasa. So much for Hickey’s assurance “I have researched this topic widely, I have read widely and this Bill will not affect 95 per cent of Tasmanians.” Does she really believe a movement which would prevent all parents from listing their children’s gender on birth certificates has no plans for a gender cultural revolution?
It is reminiscent of a scene in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. “Is it a boy or a girl” asks the new mother. “I think it’s a bit early to start imposing roles on it, don’t you,” replies the condescending obstetrician. That was 1983. We laughed at the time but had no idea this sketch was so prophetic. Neither did we realise the extent society would acquiesce in to reinforce the dogma of militant minority groups.
Consider, for example, these excerpts from the website of Tasmania’s anti-discrimination commissioner. “We all have a gender identity. It is the deeply rooted internal sense of who we are in terms of gender.” No argument there. But then “For many, however, the gender they identify with is different from that assigned at birth.” Assigned? Or “A person’s designated sex at birth is irrelevant.” These are insights into the mindset of the transgender movement: it wants to force an abandonment of the presumption — which by its very nature can be rebutted by individual choice — that biology determines gender.
Tasmanian LGBTI advocate Rodney Croome maintains that removing gender from birth certificates is no different from removing the parents’ occupations on the same document. Including gender, he says, is “not necessary”. He is supported by Roen Meijers, a spokesperson for the transgender activist group ‘Transforming Tasmania’, who claims a birth certificate is “not even a historical record”. Excuse me?
If we are to yield to the insistence by activists and academics that gender is but a construct, then perhaps we should scrutinise birth certificates to discard all previously required information of that nature. Let’s begin with place names, for example, Hobart. Construct alert! Out they go. So too do birth names, which are merely labels that an individual can change when he, she or xe reaches adulthood. Parental names? Ditto. As for the Gregorian calendar we use, it was issued at the decree of a long-dead white male. Out go the dates (in any event we should dispense with our bias in favour of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system). That leaves us with a bit of paper containing pretty much bugger all. Remind me: what is the purpose of a birth certificate?
Former federal senator Jacqui Lambie summed it up best. “I don’t know what the big deal is about going in and changing birth certificates when there’s many more important things that need to be talked about,” she said last month. “It’s typical Labor and Greens crap and I think people have had enough of it.”
Mind you it will make for some interesting bun fights in the hierarchy of offence-taking. Commenting in June on a transgender man Avery Roddam’s transition from womanhood with the assistance of testosterone. The Examiner noted “His brain has also re-wired so that he thinks rationally, with less emotion.”
According to Bronwyn Williams, a lawyer and spokeswoman for Women Speak Tasmania, these amendments could censor any arguments that biological males who identify as women should nonetheless be denied access to female-only services. It is a view rejected by Haddad, a former president of the Tasmanian branch of the Fabian Society, who claims “The amendments protect the rights of people who need it and will in no way diminish the rights of others.”
The overseas experience demonstrates otherwise. Last week Eastern Michigan University’s Women’s Resource Center announced it would will no longer host productions of Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues”. Released in 1996, the play was heralded as a celebration of vaginas and femininity, yet its falling out of favour within a generation is proof of the revolution turning on its own. This arbitrary decision follows the WRC workshop “Not all women have vaginas”.
“We truly believe that it is important to center our minoritised students and this decision is in line with this mission-driven value,” announced a WRC representative, all but confirming her career lies in a taxpayer-funded position in academia or a human rights tribunal.
Last Sunday Britain’s Daily Mail reported that an astonishing 17 children from the one school were undergoing gender reassignment. According to the whistle-blower, a teacher, most of the children were autistic but were “tricked” into believing they suffer from gender dysphoria, adding schools and politicians had swallowed “hook, line and sinker” a fallacy perpetuated by the transgender lobby. She also claimed she was advised not to tell parents if a student claimed to be transgender. Not surprisingly, the teacher has remained anonymous for fear of dismissal. On that note you might want to reconsider Haddad’s assurance this month that “In no way does the existing act or the changes I’m proposing seek to prevent people speaking about issues, debating issues in the public sphere.” If that is the case, Ms Haddad, where are the free speech provisions in your draft legislation that expressly guarantee this?
As for Hickey, a winner of Miss Tasmania some 40 years ago, I wonder if she would have been so sanguine had some six-foot tall bearded entrant taken the crown or insisted on using the women’s change room. What was she saying about these changes not affecting 95 per cent of Tasmanians?
Let’s hope that Tasmania’s upper house rejects this social engineering which favours the whims of the minority over the well-being of its youngest and most impressionable citizens. If it does not act accordingly, it is proof that something rotten is at the core of the Apple Isle.
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