Congratulations to the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) for winning the latest round in their ongoing battle with Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in their fight for female-only lesbian events – as if there are any other kind!
"Wherever you look in terms of transgender ideology, the Australian Human Rights Commission are waving the flag...being a mouthpiece for trans activism."
— WomensForumAustralia (@WomensForumAust) April 17, 2026
Our Head of Advocacy @stephbastiaan speaks to @RitaPanahi about @ActiveLesbians' win against @AusHumanRights in their ongoing… pic.twitter.com/Lrg8VpKJ85
On Wednesday, the Federal Court set aside the Administrative Review Tribunal's dismissal of LAG's appeal against the AHRC's decision to deny them an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) to run female-only lesbian events without men who identify as lesbians.
While female-only – and in this case, lesbian only – events should be uncontroversial, LAG sought an exemption because the confusion introduced by the 2013 amendments to the SDA which added protections for gender identity means that men who claim to be women can claim discrimination if they are not included in female-only spaces, services, sports and so on. This much is clear from Sall Grover's fight in Tickle v Giggle, where she is being sued for discrimination for refusing to allow a man who identifies as a woman to use her female-only social networking app.
Justice Moshinsky found that the Tribunal made material legal errors, including taking too narrow a view of the exemption power under the SDA and failing to properly consider broader human rights principles. Essentially, the Tribunal failed to properly approach the task of weighing competing rights (including women's sex-based rights) under the SDA.
The case must now be returned to the Tribunal (with a different presiding member) applying the correct legal approach.
While this latest decision is not a final determination, it delivers a blow against the ideologically captured AHRC's tunnel-visioned interpretation of our discrimination laws, which insists on elevating gender identity and the rights of men claiming to be women over biological sex and the rights of actual women.
Read the full judgment here and further background on the case here.
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