Farcical scenes unfolded in Australian parliament as a senior bureaucrat defended protecting men who claim to be women against pregnancy-related discrimination.

Australia’s far-left Sex Discrimination Commissioner Dr Anna Cody, who earns a taxpayer-funded salary of more than $400,000 a year, made the comments while being questioned by Liberal senator Michaelia Cash during Senate Estimates on Tuesday.

Dr Cody, who last year told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee she did not know what a “biological man” was, has previously advocated for minors to be given hormone and puberty blocker treatments, despite their potentially harmful and irreversible effects, including sterilisation.

Before the exchange Ms Cash asked Australian Human Rights Commission President Hugh de Krester how the Commission defines the word “woman”, to which he replied: “An adult female human, and includes a transgender woman.”

When Ms Cash asked what that was based on, Mr de Krester referred to the recent Tickle vs Giggle case where the Federal Court ruled in favour Roxanne Tickle, a male, who successfully sued women-only social media app Giggle for discrimination for not allowing him on the app because he pretends to be a woman.

“The court has said that the definition of sex was intended by this parliament to not be binary and not be immutable, so that someone under state and territory law, identification law, can change their sex, and someone can also be non-binary,” he said.

“Therefore a trans woman in the circumstances of this case is a woman for the purposes of the Sex Discrimination Act.”

Ms Cash then asked Dr Cody if the Tickle/Giggle case meant that a “women-only app cannot exclude a biological man who identifies as a woman”, and Dr Cody confirmed that was correct.

In answers to follow-up questions Dr Cody confirmed that the Commission welcomed the court’s decision, and claimed that sex was “not immutable and it can be changed and it is not binary”.

Ms Cash later asked Dr Cody to clarify a submission she made to the Federal Court about pregnancy protections in the workplace for males who claim to be women.

“Trans women, if someone who apples for a job, for example, and it is a trans woman, and she may be asked whether or not she plans 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 childbearing age, then she may have been subjected to unlawful discrimination on the basis of potential pregnancy,” Dr Cody said.

“I’m very confused. A biological male can’t become pregnant,” Ms Cash replied.

“The grounds of pregnancy includes potential pregnancy as well as pregnancy,” Dr Cody said.

“But if they can’t become pregnant, how can you become potentially pregnant?” Ms Cash asked.

“It’s about the unlawful treatment by the employer, if someone was treated unfairly on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy, then that is unlawful discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,” Dr Cody responded.

She then confirmed that the same protections would not apply to men.

“They are both biological men, it makes no sense,” Ms Cash replied, and went on to say the situation showed the “absurdity” of the Sex Discrimination Act used in the Tickle vs Giggle case.

Last year Dr Cody weighed in on the Queensland government’s decision to pause the prescription of hormones and puberty blockers for children due to concerns about their potential for harm.

“This pause has the potential to harm the physical and mental wellbeing of children in Queensland who are currently awaiting care,” she said at the time.

“Trans and gender diverse children and young people should feel supported to affirm their gender by the adults in their lives and health care providers.”

The state government halted the use of the controversial “treatments” after it was revealed that rogue gender clinics were prescribing them to gender-confused children as young as 12.