Today is International Women’s Day and we want to take this opportunity to celebrate all the incredible women in Australia and around the world – especially all the amazing women’s advocates we work with and our wonderful supporters.
Not only is today International Women’s Day, it is also the Western Australian state election. This is somewhat fitting given that Liberal Opposition Leader Libby Mettam has promised to repeal Labor’s harmful and anti-women sex self-ID laws if her party wins government.
Introduced last year, these laws allow men to legally self-identify as women, eroding sex-based rights and protections for women and girls when it comes to female-only spaces, services and sports.
In an interview this week, our Head of Advocacy Stephanie Bastiaan continued to highlight our concerns around how men who identify as women, are taking women’s awards and intruding on women’s sports. We also featured in Sky News' important new documentary ‘Fair Game: The Fight for Women’s Sport’, which we helped lay the groundwork for.
Mettam has also promised to review youth gender medicine and ban puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries for under-16s. While we believe the age limit needs to be higher than this, it is a good start, and a lot more than what most leaders are doing in Australia.
With the federal election also just around the corner, it is more important than ever that we put the pressure on our leaders to commit to restoring women’s sex-based rights, and to protecting vulnerable children and young people from harmful and irreversible gender interventions.
This is why we are asking for your help with three things:
1. Sign and share the open letter to the Prime Minister calling for a halt on all gender interventions for children and young people pending an urgent national inquiry into youth gender medicine. You can also check out our powerful new ad on this issue.
2. Sign and share our petition calling on Australian leaders to restore the sex-based rights of women and girls across Australia, and protect female-only spaces, services and sports.
3. Donate to our International Women’s Day appeal, to help turbo charge our efforts to champion – and encourage our leaders to champion – genuinely pro-woman policy and cultural change on the critical issues affecting women and girls in our country, issues that many are too scared to touch.
Thank you so much to all those who generously support our work, whether financially or otherwise. We can’t do what we do without the generosity and commitment of everyday Australians who share our vision of a better Australian society for women and girls, their families, and communities.
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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