By Stephanie Bastiaan
I doubt any sane person has heard or read the phrase ‘her penis’ without rolling their eyes. For female victims of sexual crimes, the phrase can inflict enormous trauma. For a young person learning biology, it is a confusing concept that requires an explanation of ‘gender theory’, which has no scientific basis. But while the term may seem comical, it is no laughing matter for women and girls whose dignity, privacy and safety are being compromised by the unwanted presence of males in female-only spaces.
Another insidious aspect of gender ideology is its irreversible harm to young people. Becoming ‘trans’ doesn’t simply involve a change of clothes or a new haircut – the consequences, particularly for vulnerable young people, involve irreversible surgeries and harmful drugs that impact physical health and brain development, as well as harmful side effects, including stunted growth, infertility and cancer.
Legislation banning ‘conversion practices’, including in relation to ‘gender identity’, has passed in nearly every state in Australia. This means that in most places, the only legal way to treat gender dysphoria or distress is with the ‘gender affirmation’ model. This involves unreservedly ‘affirming’ a person’s subjective ‘gender identity’, including with the drugs, hormones and surgeries this entails.
With increased government powers to censor public discourse, particularly online, and stricter anti-vilification and anti-discrimination laws, doctors, parents, advocates, and members of the public who express concern face increasing risks of legal action.
This is exemplified by the arrival of Canadian father and children’s rights advocate Chris Elston, better known as Billboard Chris. Chris is in Australia this week to challenge eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s online censorship at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Within 24 hours of his arrival in Brisbane, Elston was slapped with a $806 fine for “obstructing and unreasonably disturbing a person in the mall”, despite video evidence to the contrary. He was then forcibly removed by police for standing in the public open-air mall where he had been wearing one of his famous billboards with a message: ‘children cannot consent to puberty blockers’. Ironically, Queensland is the one state where the government has committed to investigate the evidence underpinning the use of puberty blockers for gender distressed children.
Elston’s fight against the eSafety Commissioner is in response to actions she took in 2024 to censor a post he made on X scrutinising the suitability of appointing trans-rights activist and former ACON Director Teddy Cook to a World Health Organisation committee tasked with drafting care guidelines for vulnerable people with gender dysphoria. Cook, who has reportedly shared sexually explicit content on social media, including pictures depicting bestiality, nudity, bondage and orgies, has also previously advocated for tax-funded surgeries as part of ‘gender-affirming’ practices, and co-authored a study that claimed the use of illicit drugs was associated with increased sexual satisfaction for ‘trans and gender diverse’ Australians.
Cook is female but has undergone hormone therapy and surgery to present as a man, and it was Elston’s use of female pronouns to refer to Cook – rather than male pronouns in line with ‘gender-identity’ – that led to the e-Safety Commissioner intervening with a removal notice under section 88 of the Online Safety Act, 2021. The eSafety Commissioner takes the position that ‘misgendering’ someone online is cyber abuse and a form of ‘gendered’ violence. Although Inman Grant initially demanded the post be removed from X entirely with the threat of a $800,000 fine, she only successfully got it geo-blocked in Australia, with X filing a legal challenge of its own in conjunction with Elston.
In a time of growing government censorship, X and Elston’s case is critical not only for free speech but also because publishing facts and truth and raising legitimate concerns should never be penalised, regardless of how offensive it may seem or how impolitely it might be framed.
For quite some time, corporations, businesses and institutions on the social credit, box-ticking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) train have encouraged the adoption of 'preferred pronouns’ on work email signatures and staff biographies. The tax-funded ABC has a dedicated ‘ABCQueer’ channel dedicated to disseminating pro-gender theory propaganda, including cartoons for kids. State governments invest millions in pro-gender theory resources for schools, libraries, and hospitals.
But despite issues with this multifaceted approach to normalising gender theory in our culture and society, a dystopian line is crossed when the government says truth-telling contrary to a social theory is a crime.
As proponents of gender theory know, language matters, and controlling speech is important. It is through the distortion of language and truth in policy, law, media, healthcare and our education system that has facilitated gender ideology being entrenched in society – primarily to the detriment of women and vulnerable children.
Australians should be very concerned by the government’s increasing appetite to control and censor public discourse. Free speech is a vital cornerstone of democracy. As Robert Clarke, Director of Advocacy at ADF International and one of Elston’s legal representatives says, “in a free society, ideas should be challenged with ideas, not state censorship.”
Elston has reached the far ends of the globe with his advocacy on the harms of gender ideology, from addressing the United Nations to speaking to the public in cities around the world, including around Australia. Regardless of the outcome, his return to Australia to highlight the medical scandal of child transitioning and to fight ideologically driven government censorship, will benefit all Australians.
Stephanie Bastiaan is Head of Advocacy at Women’s Forum Australia. Sign WFA’s petition calling for urgent action on youth gender medicine here.
This article was originally published on the Spectator Australia.
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
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