The ALRC has been asked by federal Attorney-General Christian Porter to review the religious exemptions to anti-discrimination legislation at a Commonwealth, state and territory level. The right not to affirm a child’s gender identity is so important it should be extended to non-religious schools too, Professor Patrick Parkinson said. Religious schools should also be allowed to keep the exemptions to anti-discrimination legislation they have, particularly if they are doing so in the best interests of the child, he said. Professor Parkinson, the dean of the University of Queensland law school, said anti-discrimination legislation should be clarified to ensure schools are able to offer their services on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity. “Sex, or what it means to be male or female, needs to be defined in terms of reproductive function while gender identity can be defined in terms of subjective belief,” Professor Parkinson said. ‘‘Such clarification in the law would go a long way to resolving the dilemmas now being created by laws which base changes to gender identity on nothing more than self-declaration.”

Faith-based schools have the right to discriminate against students and teachers on the basis of their sexuality and gender identity. Professor Parkinson said many people of faith “cannot accept many of the beliefs of the transgender movement”, for example that gender is “assigned” at birth, or that gender is fluid. It would be unfair for the law to require them to act against their values and beliefs, “if another person’s self-identification imposes on [them] obligations [they] cannot, in all good conscience, fulfil”. Professor Parkinson said, for example, that the principal of a faith-based school who is deciding on a request from a student to change their gender identification, may advise counselling or expert diagnosis before the request is met. “The crisis of conscience may arise from a genuine belief that it is not in the best interests of the child or young person to affirm his or her transgender identification, any more than it would be in the best interests of an adolescent girl with an eating disorder to affirm her body image as overweight”.

This situation may lead to “a fundamental clash of beliefs and values - and one which may, but need not be, resolved through the rather blunt instrument of the law”. Loading Professor Parkinson said some of the beliefs of the transgender movement are unscientific. Anna Brown, chief executive of Equality Australia, which is lobbying for the religious bodies' anti-discrimination exemptions to be axed, said “the first priority of all schools should be the wellbeing of the kids in their care, including transgender children and our laws should help schools do that.” “Principals should take advice from doctors on the way these cases should be handled, not deciding for themselves whether a child’s experience of gender dysphoria is legitimate or not,” she said.

Ms Brown said all schools that accept taxpayer funding should be subject to the same laws. “Everyone across the Parliament, including the Prime Minister, agreed a year ago on the need to end discrimination against kids in schools, and here we are a year later, no closer to achieving this goal.”