The ACT will have "world-leading protections for intersex people" after the Legislative Assembly passed laws to ban deferrable medical interventions for intersex people in the territory until they are able to consent.
A number of members were emotional when speaking on the bill, including Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who said intersex advocates had been fighting for protections against harmful practices such unnecessary medical procedures for decades.
"Intersex bodies continue to be stigmatised and intersex issues are often minimised and misunderstood, this contributes to discrimination against the intersex community," Mr Barr said.
"I thank those advocates who have helped develop this legislation and for some seeing this bill come to fruition brings complex emotions ... joy and pain but what I am saying today is we continue to stand with intersex people and their families at this time."
Mr Barr introduced the bill to the Assembly in March and it had been developed over four years of consultation.
The bill defines a variation in sex characteristics as "a congenital condition that involves atypical sex characteristics", and will ban treatments that can be deferred until that person is able to consent to the treatments.
The bill will also create two new offences, making it illegal for a person to undertake an unapproved medical treatment covered by the legislation or to arrange for an unapproved restricted medical treatment, including by taking a person out of the ACT to have the treatment.
Canberra Health Services will also start offering dedicated psycho-social care for people with variations in sex characteristics and their families and this will be the first tertiary health service in the nation to provide this, Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said.
"This service will provide essential care coordination across the child's and parents needs linking maternity care, paediatric care specialists, psychology and social work professionals as well as vital peer supports," she said.
The bill would create an independent assessment board to oversee treatment plans for intersex children in the ACT; the board must have members with experience or expertise in psychosocial support, human rights, medicine, ethics and "lived experience of variation in sex characteristics". The bill won't ban emergency medical procedures on intersex children.
Intersex advocate Mimi Hall, who is intersex, said it was a huge day.
"I'm feeling really, really happy and really excited that this legislation has passed," she said.
"I think it's a complicated day because obviously it comes with a lot of sadness for the things that have happened to the intersex community and it is a day that has just taken way too long to come.
"But it is also a day that is here and I think that is really important to see and to cherish."
Intersex Human Rights Australia executive director Morgan Carpenter said the organisation had advocating for reforms like this since it was established in 2010.
"This development in the ACT is transformative. It transforms the regulatory environment completely," he said.
The opposition did not vote against the bill but put forward amendments. The government supported one of the amendments but voted down others.
The amendments, put forward by opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley, were around giving more consideration to the views of parents in treatment plans.
Ms Stephen-Smith was critical of the opposition for putting the amendments the day before the legislation was set to be debated.
"This bill was introduced in March, by my count, 52 business days ago," she said.
Ms Castley said the opposition was concerned there had been no inquiry undertaken into the bill after it was voted down by Labor and Green members of the Assembly's health committee.
She said there had been concerns raised with the opposition around the criminal penalties in the bill and around the fact the bill featured a list of included conditions.
"We now have legislation which in the words of the Chief Minister is an internationally significant reform which has had no substantive scrutiny undertaken by the Assembly," Ms Castley said.
"It is imperative that significant legislation such as this, which deals with extremely complex and sensitive issues is done right and part of that process should have been an inquiry undertaken by the health, community and wellbeing committee."
Ms Castley said she wrote to the committee on Thursday morning urging them to undertake an inquiry into regulations in the bill.
Greens backbencher Johnathan Davis said the bill would "bring into law world-leading protections for intersex people".
"Protections that acknowledge the fundamental humanity of people with innate variations in their sex characteristics," he said.
"Protections which support fully informed decision making and the rights of intersex people to determine what happens to their own bodies."
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