Thank you very much.
Dean Leckey, I want to talk with you about your comments on the intersex community in paragraph 268(3)(a). Before I ask you a pointed question, I will say for colleagues on the justice committee that we're talking about babies who are born with ambiguous genitals. They don't present as boys or girls. In the past they would have been referred to as “hermaphrodites”, but the community has evolved. People in the community use the term “intersex”. This is a very important community. It's a marginalized community.
We have done work at the LGBTQ2 secretariat, working with people such Dr. Morgan Holmes and others, so that people can understand what happens. Imagine that you're parents and you have a baby, and the baby presents ambiguous genitals. Medical professionals in this country can decide the sex of your child at birth. They have a 50% chance of getting it wrong or a 33% chance of getting it wrong, depending on where that baby is on the gender spectrum.
Friends of mine on Vancouver Island had a child 15 years ago with ambiguous genitals. They found a medical professional who told them to let the child grow up. It was exactly what the parents wanted. Two months ago, that now-15-year-old had a gender-reveal party and picked a gender. I'm not going to tell you what was picked—because it doesn't freaking matter.
What matters is that nobody poked and prodded this 15-year-old teenager. This teenager grew up to be a totally happy kid and has now chosen a gender. We empower medical professionals to basically bring harm to babies. That's not cool. We should not allow that.
Professor Leckey, what language would you have in this section to prevent this from happening?