A wide-ranging bill to reduce LGBTQI discrimination, drafted by independent MP Alex Greenwich, was passed into law in NSW parliament on Thursday night after a 15-12 upper house vote.
The bill had reopened deep rifts within the Liberal party over transgender issues and caused a moderate MP to cross party lines to support the suite of legal changes.
NSW was the only jurisdiction in Australia to still have surgery as a requirement for transgender people to update their official documents to reflect their gender.
Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown said the reforms would ensure queer people's lived reality matched their legal identity.
"NSW is (no longer) the only place in Australia to require surgery on reproductive organs in order for people to access ID documents that recognise them for who they are," Ms Brown said.
The old system had meant trans people had been forced to out themselves when applying for jobs, getting a mortgage or registering for school or university, she said.
Tinkering with 10 different acts, the legislation increases the time to register a birth if variations of sex characteristics make it difficult to determine sex and creates an offence for threatening to out a person's LGBTQI status or sex work history.
It also provides a pathway for children born out of overseas commercial surrogacy arrangements to have their parents recognised on their birth certificate.
Rainbow Families chief executive Ashley Scott said the new laws meant queer children would now be equal before the law.
"This is a profound relief for the hundreds of loving and caring families who have been locked in a legal limbo," said Ashley Scott, Executive Officer of Rainbow Families.
The NSW coalition had criticised the omnibus bill for going "too far, too quickly", citing internal concerns about women's safety once transgender people could more easily change the sex listed on their birth certificate.
That argument was condemned as "fearmongering" by North Sydney Liberal MP Felicity Wilson, who crossed the floor to back the laws in the lower house.
Along with the Liberals and Nationals, some independent crossbenchers from urban fringe or regional electorates either opposed the bill or abstained from voting.
However, it passed with the support of the Greens and Labor in both houses and progressive crossbenchers in the upper house.
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