The Queensland Labor government is hell-bent on allowing people to change facts on their birth certificates.

But renowned biologist Peter Koopman has warned politicians not to rush through a transgender rights law when, as he points out, they are conflating sex (biology) with gender (ideology) and it will have damaging consequences.

Self-identification leads to the abuse of women’s sex-based rights, not to mention laws that rely on lies and falsehoods instead of truth and fact.

The renowned biologist Peter Koopman has warned politicians not to rush through a transgender rights law which he says conflates the fixed scientific category of biological sex with the changeable social construct of gender. 

Shortly before Australia’s summer holidays, the Labor government in the state of Queensland introduced a draft law that would enable people aged 16 and older to change the “record of sex” on their birth certificate. The law would also allow children aged 12 to 15 to make this change against parental opposition or even without parents being notified of the proposed change, if a court so decides and “a developmentally-informed practitioner” supports the child.

Professor Koopman presented evidence to the Legal Affairs and Safety Committee of Queensland’s parliament, giving his professional opinion about self-identification and gender identity.

“The key problem, from my professional point of view, is [that the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022] is flawed because it tries to conflate sex and gender, [to] put them all in the same lump — they're not, they're totally separate concepts,” he said.

“Sex has a very specific scientific and biological meaning that is essentially fixed.”

“Sex is a fundamental biological descriptor of an organism of a person, as fundamental as the species,” he said. 

“Gender is something entirely different. It's a psychosocial construct. It's a much more fluid construct, it's open to self-identification.” 

Professor Koopman said the proposed law and consequences have not been thought through properly and women will be the losers.

Binary spokeswoman Kirralie Smith said self-identification laws are based on lies.

“It is a lie to claim a man can become a woman,” she said.

“It is utterly false to change someone’s historical fact at birth. Official identity documents need to relay facts, not feelings, personality expressions or preferences.

“Adults can present themselves however they like but it doesn’t change biological facts.

“Records must be relied upon as truthful, not lies to appease someone’s feelings.”