#TheSpectator
"I'm ... very confused."
Transcript of a discussion between Dr Anna Cody - Sex Discrimination Commissioner - and Senator Michaelia Cash regarding the potential of transgender women to become pregnant any discrimination they might face.
MC: "Did you ask the Federal Court to extend pregnancy protections to transgender women?"
AC: "Senator, not from my recollection ... in the submissions we talked about the meaning of pregnancy and potential pregnancy and how that may apply to transgender identity."
MC: "How do you see that applying in the Act currently to transwomen?"
AC: "Transwomen. If someone who applies for a job, for example, and it is a transwoman, and she may be asked whether or not she intends to have children and if she replies, 'Yes, I do.' And then doesn't get the job because that employer doesn't want to employ women who may be of child-bearing age then she may have been subjected to unlawful discrimination on the basis of potential pregnancy."
MC: "I'm very confused. A biological male cannot become pregnant."
AC: "But the grounds of pregnancy includes 'potential pregnancy' as well as pregnancy."
MC: "But if they can't become pregnant how can you then become 'potentially pregnant'?"
AC: "It's about the unlawful treatment by the employer. If someone is treated unfairly on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy then that is unlawful discrimination on the basis of pregnancy."
MC: "So, if a bloke came in and they said, 'Are you going to have children?' Which is the same question, really. And he said, 'Oh, yeah, maybe.' Are you saying that he could also claim that ground?"
AC: "If he didn't receive the job because..."
MC: "They can't get pregnant."
AC: "No. Not a man who is seeking a position then it's not going to apply to a man."
MC: "They're both biological men. It makes no sense.
A biological man.
You stated it.
A biological man can't get pregnant.
Am I correct?
Because if I'm not.
I've got to go back to school. I seriously do.
Because I missed that lesson in biology.
I went to a convent school ... the nuns may not have told me about that.
But you said a biological man can't get pregnant."
AC: "That's correct, Senator. But someone who is a transwoman may be assumed to be pregnant or to be able to be pregnant."
MC: "So, what stops a man putting on a dress, walking in, and claiming the protections? He's now a woman. You've admitted that."
AC: "That would be up to a court to decide whether or not it was discrimination on a..."
MC: "With all due respect, it is an absurdity of the law yet again which shows - again - the law does need to be changed because, for the record, biological men - doesn't matter what way you cut it - you cannot get pregnant and, quite frankly, it is an insult to women who actually are discriminated on because they want to have children when they biologically can get pregnant.
♦️The good news is that what we're proving today is that the law needs to be changed."