Acting Premier Ryan Park has shut down an attempt by 57-year-old convicted double murderer, Terry Donai, to transfer to a women’s prison.
“I don’t find it acceptable, and I don’t think the community would find it acceptable,” the Acting Premier told the Daily Telegraph. “It won’t be happening.”
Donai is less than halfway through the 43-year sentence he was given for suffocating the adoptive parents of his friend and then attempting to disguise their killings as a car accident. His earliest eligible parole date is not until mid-2039.
Donai reportedly made his application to transfer in 2023 and began hormone replacement therapy several months ago.
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, “government sources raised concern over the first-of-its-kind assessment required for the transfer application, citing the fact that Donai had not undergone gender reassignment surgery.”
I’m a little confused as to which government sources might be troubled that Donai had not first undergone gender reassignment surgery, given this government championed last year’s push by Alex Greenwich for a person to be able to change their sex on official documents without the need for any type of medical intervention.
Indeed, Acting Corrections Minister Jihad Dib, who also opposed Donai’s proposed move, had this to say about Greenwich and this month’s commencement of Greenwich’s “equality bill” that paved the way for sex self-identification and which the government enthusiastically backed:
“I am sure all members would agree that [Greenwich] is an outstanding member who speaks through his principles. He is highly regarded and well respected by everybody… The member for Sydney should be proud of his efforts to champion this particular reform because from next Tuesday it is going to be easier for trans and gender-diverse people of New South Wales to update their birth certificates.
“Up until now, New South Wales has been the only jurisdiction requiring a person to undergo surgery to change their registered sex. The amendments being made to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995, which I share responsibility for with the Attorney General, do away with that requirement and bring New South Wales into line with the rest of the country. The key points are making sure that everyone is supported and feels included, respected and safe when dealing with New South Wales Government transactions. This goes to the very heart of what the New South Wales Government is about.”
If the ability for someone to legally change their sex by filling out a form is at the “very heart of what the New South Wales Government is about,” then why did Minister Dib reject Donai’s bid to change prisons just a fortnight later?
“We are not running the risk of an inmate convicted of sexual assault on a woman, nominating a change of gender and then trying to enter a woman’s prison,” Dib said.
It wasn’t a sudden change of heart.
The government is able to champion sex self-identification on the one hand and deny Donai’s application on the other because it reserved for itself the right to refuse inmates and parolees the ability to change their sex. In this way, the government insulated itself against the controversy that would ensure once the predictable happened: a male prisoner who was serving a sentence for a violent crime against a woman tried to shift to a female facility.
Shame the government didn’t give the same consideration to vulnerable women in other settings. Women’s shelters are on their own. So too women’s gyms and other women’s only spaces. When it comes to women who aren’t in prison, they are on their own.
Given the government carved out an exemption for itself and not anyone else, one has to wonder whether it is more interested in protecting its own reputation than women at risk.