Queensland, mirrored in like legislation nationwide, reinforces the view already established by the authorities cited above of SRA, Kevin and Jennifer and AB v Registrar of BDM, that in its contemporary ordinary meaning, sex is changeable.
63 The concept of sex has broadened further over the 30 years since SRA, especially by reason of the wide scope that now exists for legally changing the sex of a person on official birth records. The acceptance that Ms Tickle is correctly described as a woman, reinforcing her gender identity status for the purposes of this proceeding, and therefore for the purposes of bringing her present claim of gender identity discrimination, is legally unimpeachable.
64 The construction of s 5 proposed by the respondents is fundamentally at odds with the text, broader context and purpose of the SDA with the gender identity discrimination provisions added and the other changes made. The respondents' construction of s 5 cannot be accepted. The respondents' contention that Ms Tickle was discriminated against as a man misunderstands the concept of sex in s 5. I therefore reject the argument that her case is incorrectly pleaded as one of gender identity discrimination. I further consider the construction of s 5B later in these reasons, at Part 3(b).
PART 3: INTERPREATION OF KEY PROVISIONS OF THE SDA
(a) History of amendments to the SDA
65 Given their relevance to several questions that arise in this judgment, it is necessary to set out a brief history of certain key amendments to the SDA, being relevant to the interpretation and application of the key provisions summarised or reproduced in Part 2(c) of these reasons above.
66 The SDA was enacted in 1984, the year after Australia ratified CEDAW. At the time, the SDA prohibited discrimination on only three grounds: sex, marital status and pregnancy. Despite amendments, the SDA has retained its basic structure. Key among them, Pt I contained and still contains the operative definitions of terms used throughout the Act, including discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status and pregnancy; and Pt II contained, and still contains, prohibitions of those forms of discrimination, as well as certain exceptions to their effect.
67 As noted above, s 4 used to contain a number of definitions of key terms that were repealed with the introduction of the gender identity discrimination provisions, including the removal of the following definitions of the words man and woman:
"man" means a member of the male sex irrespective of age;
