When Coonan enrolled his first-born son into a Brisbane daycare in late 2019, he asked they disregard the birth certificate and refer to him as the boy’s dad. Despite his legal efforts to have it changed, the document still listed Coonan as his mother.
“I had to submit myself to their generosity as to whether they were going to accept my identity as I presented it, or if they were going to insist that they had to be consistent with the government,” Coonan, who did not want his full name published, said.
“I felt really humiliated and small.”
But the era in which the identity of trans and gender-diverse people such as Coonan were at odds with the Queensland government came to an end on Wednesday evening, with the passing of reforms to how parents are listed and their sex identified on birth certificates.
The new laws allow for one or two mothers to be listed on a child’s birth certificate, or one or two fathers – or for them simply to be listed as “parents”. They will also enable trans and gender-diverse Queenslanders to change the sex listed on their own birth certificate without – as was previously required – the need for sexual reassignment surgery.
Coonan transitioned from identifying as a woman to a man at the age of 26 and went on to deliver three boys using a known sperm donor.
He had already changed the sex on his own New South Wales birth certificate and his passport, after undergoing chest reconstruction surgery and taking hormones.
But after the birth of his first son in February 2019, a Queensland midwife apologised as Coonan had to be listed as a mother on the birth certificate.
Now, the repercussions of the new law will be felt beyond the borders of the sunshine state.
Western Australia is also committed to joining every state and territory in Australia – bar one – by reforming its laws that require people undergo surgery before changing the sex on their birth certificate.
New South Wales is the only other state or territory in Australia where the requirement still exists.
Sexual reassignment surgery is a costly procedure that involves a number of health risks and is not readily available in Australia.
Alastair Lawrie, policy and advocacy director at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, said this was one of “a wide range of LGBTIQ law reform issues” upon which NSW would soon become “an outlier”.
“NSW currently requires trans people to undergo genital surgery in order to access a new birth certificate, something many do not want and many of those who do cannot afford,” Lawrie said.
“There’s a need for reform on birth certificates, there’s a need for reform on anti-discrimination law, there’s a need for reform on intersex surgeries, there’s a need for reform on conversion practices. In all of those areas NSW is behind most other jurisdictions,” Lawrie said.
Queensland’s attorney general, Yvette D’Ath, said the state’s laws were a win for the LGBTQ+ community, allowing trans and gender-diverse people to self-identify.
“This bill will help reduce the distress, fear, discrimination and privacy violations that many people in our communities face on an all-too-frequent basis,” she said.
But they did not receive unanimous support. The Liberal National party opposition, along with Katter’s Australian party and the independent MP Sandy Bolton, voted against the bill.
The debate became heated.
D’Ath criticised comments made by the LNP’s deputy leader, Jarrod Bleijie, and others, saying they had “caused harm and hurt” to people listening in the public gallery and apologised to the LGBTQ+ community on their behalf.
The comments came after Bleijie, interjecting during a speech by the Labor MP Chris Whiting, said: “Feminine identity? It’s blokes in a dress.”
Bleijie later contributed to the debate, labelling the bill “an attack on women”.
The LNP MP Amanda Camm also opposed the laws, claiming “a trans woman is … not a woman”.
The youth justice minister, Di Farmer, also apologised to the LGBTQ+ people sitting in the gallery for the nature of the debate.
The Greens supported the bill despite a failed amendment, moved by the party on Wednesday, to scrap fees for people accessing and updating their documents.
The Greens MP for Maiwar, Michael Berkman, said a lack of accurate documentation “prevents people from enrolling in school, getting a driving licence, getting a job, opening a bank account and applying for housing”.
Similar reforms in the UK have generated fierce controversy, but the Green’s federal LGBTQ+ spokesperson, Stephen Bates, said “things are different” in Australia.
He said similar reforms in every other state and territory except NSW had been well received by the general community.
“I think it is just a matter of time, honestly, before NSW follows the rest of the states and territories,” the Brisbane MP said. “It’s a pleasant inevitability.”
For Coonan, the polarised debate in Queensland parliament would be all too familiar. From the moment he came out, Coonan said “everyone had an opinion” about his gender.
So on the passing of the bill, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
“It is the end of something that has caused lots of people grief,” Coonan said.
“It feels good – but also feels like something we shouldn’t have had to go through.”
